


Beast Inside

by Flamingbluepanda



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Children of Earth Compliant, Daemons, Fluff, Love, Multi, codas, some torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22153948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamingbluepanda/pseuds/Flamingbluepanda
Summary: "Argue with anything else, but don’t argue with your own nature.” - Phillip PullmanInside us all, there is an animal that expresses our soul. How would the world change were those animals outside?
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Owen Harper/Toshiko Sato
Comments: 41
Kudos: 194





	1. Prologue; Becoming

**Author's Note:**

> OKIE FREAKING DOKIE GUYS
> 
> this shit. this FUCKING FIC. it was supposed to be short and sweet and I was supposed to finish it in a few weeks. 
> 
> It has been six months. I have struggled so hard with this fic and it STILL isn't done, however, I DO have the first four chapters (and believe me, they're long.)
> 
> this au is vaugely pretentious and the style is inconsistant but please take this, I'm so very proud of it.
> 
> This chapter- and, god, I might as well just dedicate this whole fic to Engagemythrusters aka iianto-jones on tumblr, who has been SUCH a huge supporter of this fic and listened so patiently to all my whining. Thank you so much friend, this ones for you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a world both like ours and not, a young hero is born far in the future, only to have become a man in the past

As a child, Jack was certain his Daemon would be some type of bird. His mom was certain of it, and his dad would ruffle his hair and say he’d touch the stars if he didn’t keep his feet on the ground. At night Jack would dream about sprouting wings and flying high above Boeshane- Grey’s hand grasped in his and his father’s in the other, with his father clinging tight to his mom. 

Jack’s daemon’s name is Navir, but most people call him Navi, much to Jack’s annoyance. 

“Really,” he pouts, 8 years old and full of self-righteousness, “it’s just an R. It’s not that hard.” 

“I know, right? I like my name.” Navir would grumble, hopping around in the form of a Puffinseal on the sand and pecking for crabs with his beak. Jack laughs and can’t wait until he turns 12 and Navir settles. 

He’s 11 when he sees the irony of his dreams being filled with clutching Grey’s hand. 

Jack never dreams of being a bird again, and a year later Navir settles as a bear. 

He doesn’t quite get it- why a  _ bear?  _ They aren’t even native to Boeshane, Jack’s never seen one outside of pictures- but nonetheless, Navir has chosen. A bear with black fur and long claws and sharp teeth- to protect mom perhaps, or to scare her away, because as Jack grows  _ gosh  _ so does Navir. 

Navir gets too big, actually. He starts hulking over things, a mass of black fur and teeth. People start running away when they see him and it honestly kinda sucks- 

So Jack joins the time agency. 

It’s… okay. 

Well, at the time he’ll say it’s great, everything he ever wants, he can reach the stars now.

But they… don’t treat daemons well. Jack gets forced to be apart from Navir a lot, and that just feels  _ wrong.  _ Jack’s always has a pretty strong connection with his Daemon. Being away from him is a wrongness that resonates in his soul. 

So Jack proves his work- he has high success rates, is ruthless and powerful and does everything right, even his insane murder rehab partner. 

So when he wakes up one day with  _ two years _ missing- 

Well. Jack doesn’t look back.

* * *

It’s 1941 and Jack is bored. 

He and Navir have been here for a few months now, and it’s just… tiring. He didn’t mind fighting in the war, he supposed, especially since he and Navi could just teleport out of battle if need be. 

But really, this con was getting to be more trouble than it’s worth. 

Jack sighs and leans down to scratch Navir behind the ears again, making the bear rumble contentedly. Algy is still yammering away beside him, his Daemon curled up in his lap. Navir’s been too big for that for years- he could stand on his hind legs at almost seven feet when Jack needed to seem especially intimidating. 

Their little Chula ship is almost too small. Navir takes up 80% of the floor space when he lays in the center of the room, and he can’t cram into the bunk with Jack without crushing him. Jack enjoys the closeness though- Agency training made him capable of being away from Navir at great distances and for spans of time, but it wasn’t enjoyable. 

The blitz alarm starts to ring throughout the hotel Jack and Algy and the other soldiers were in, and Algy stands up, his chinchilla springing off his lap. 

Jack sighs and considered just staying- his drink is good, and he’s comfy. It would be an escape from the boredom for sure. 

Navir picks up his head and says “I think I found a different distraction.” 

He follows Navir’s line of sight to…

What the heck is hanging off of that Barrage Balloon?

Jack clambers to his feet and pulls his trusty binoculars out of his pocket. Holding them up to his eyes, he adjusts the zoom and focuses to see… A girl. In a freaking  _ union jack shirt,  _ hanging off a barrage balloon. For a moment, Jack zooms in on her non-20th-century denim-clad ass. 

_ “Excellent  _ bottom,” he praises, lowering the binoculars and holding them out for Navir to see. The daemon puts his front paws on the balcony rail and raises his head to see. 

“Time agent,” Navir grunts, and Jack grins. “Time agent. Set the alarms, buddy, Volcano day’s a-coming.” 

The pair turn and walk out, with Algy frowning after them “Aren’t you two coming down to the shelters?”

“Sorry, Algy old boy, I got a date.” Jack winks at him, and Navir nudges his butt as they pass. 

“We like your butt too, Algy.” He says, and pads after Jack. His long claws click on the floor as Jack goes into a supply closet before activating his VM. The feeling of  _ stepping to the left  _ ends and they’re on the ship. Jack has to clamber over Navir to get to the pilot’s seat, and he shoots his Daemon a glare. “Why’re you so big?”

“You have a big personality,” Navir retorts, and Jack grins at him before settling in his seat and searching the sky for the girl in the Union Jack. 

Navir didn’t know that Rose Tyler would change their life at the time, but he figures it out pretty quick.

* * *

Rose’s Daemon’s name is Nicholas, and he’s a golden lemur who perches happily atop her shoulder or Navir’s head. They land in Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS, and Jack meets Mickey. Mickey’s daemon is  _ actually  _ a mouse, which Jack finds positively hilarious. For all his and Mickey’s teasing, Navir and Ben get along great. 

A lot of other things happen in Cardiff- Slitheen, an earthquake, the rift doing something or other. But one moment sticks out in Jack’s head… 

As he and Navir are walking back to the TARDIS, about to leave, he spots a young man in a suit walking across the Plass. He has a take out bag in one hand, and he’s talking on his phone with the other. Trotting at his feet is a terrier/spaniel mix, white and red fur gleaming in the rare Cardiff sunlight. 

Navir stops walking, staring at the pair. The Terrier stops too and looks directly at them, barking and tugging at the man’s pant leg until he stops and looks directly at Jack. 

His eyes were blue. So very blue. 

The suited man smiles a little, and it lights up his whole face. He gives Jack a little wave and keeps walking. 

“We’ll have to look him up if we ever get back to Cardiff, huh buddy?” Jack asks, nudging Navir out of his trance. Navir looks up at him and says “that daemon smells like me.” 

Jack snorts. “Your imagining things. C’mon, the doctor’s gonna leave without us.” 

(If he’d known what was going to happen next, and it wouldn’t have broken the timeline, Jack would have run after that man in that perfect suit. They would have fallen in love and gotten married and grown old and grey together, with Navir and the dog being just as content. 

But this was not meant to be.) 

Jack wakes up with no memories between walking to the TARDIS and opening his eyes in a white room with two stylist droids and no Navir. This is the beginning of the end. 

* * *

Jack gasps back to life and  _ screams.  _

He was shot by a Dalek, he was shot by a Dalek, he was  _ shot by a god damn Dalek what the fuck happened.  _ Oh, goddesses and gods it hurt, everything hurt, what was going on, why wasn’t there enough  _ air-  _

Jack’s panic calms only marginally when he feels a familiar head come and rest on his lap, and he can bury his face in the scruff on the back of Navir’s neck and cry.

_ What the fuck just happened _ . 

Turns out, he wouldn’t get an answer to that one for a long, long time. 


	2. Part 1: Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto Jones enters the scene, and there is sexual tension, among other emotions. Also, a Dinosaur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE BACK BABES! 
> 
> I'm so happy people are excited for this fic. God knows I am. Everyone in the comments whos living Navir: I love him too. thats my boy. what a good boy.
> 
> This chapter is my awful attempt at writing sexual tension. I hope I did well? Idk man You guys know me- soulmates and established relationships that transend universes are my brand. 
> 
> Also angst. 
> 
> Dedicated to that bear from Balto who is exactly how I picture navir in my head.

_ 141 years later…  _

Navir grumbled empathically whenever they had to go out on a rainy night. He claimed that the scars he had accumulated from Jack’s various deaths always got wet and cold and he hated it, to which Jack always snorted and called Navir vain, which usually led to a quip about how much time Jack spent on his hair. 

Nonetheless, they always went on the weevil hunts that took place late in the night, especially the rainy ones. It was only fair, it wasn’t like either of them could die. And Jack didn’t need to sleep nearly as much as he used to. 

Of course, tonight it seemed like the weevil would win against them both. 

Jack dodged as it swiped, and Navir reared up on his back legs to bring his front paws down on its head. Jack fumbled with the weevil spray, and it got back up to jump at Navir. 

And then a large two-by-four hit the weevil over the back of the head, and the weevil collapsed. 

The man standing behind the weevil and wielding the piece of wood was wearing a denim jacket and a white button-down, along with a pair of low-riding rentboy jeans that cupped his ass perfectly. At his feet sat a Terrier-Spaniel mix, with longish red and white fur and perky ears. She was small, her coat was dirty, and she was frail, indicating that she and her human had had a tough time of it lately. She hid behind the man’s- little more than a boy’s- legs. 

The man lowered his piece of wood, huffing a bit from the exertion. He was staring at Navir, of  _ course,  _ he was staring at Navir. The weevil was taken care of and Navir was easily the next biggest threat in  _ Cardiff  _ much less in Bute Park. 

Navir, most definitely sensing Jack’s train of thought, bared his teeth in his version of a smile. Cute denim rentboy raised his two-by-four again and the terrier bared her own teeth to try and look intimidating. It was  _ adorable  _ and Jack bit back a chuckle as he stepped forward. 

“Alright,” he said gently “how about you put down the weapon and I’ll make sure this big lug doesn’t jump on you two, Okay?” 

Rentboy blinked, then nodded and tossed the wood to the side. The terrier/spaniel came around in front of him, shaking like a leaf but determined to protect her human counterpart. 

“Thanks for the assist, but I had it well in hand,” Jack said, tugging the weevil onto Navir’s back. Rentboy snorted, and Jack caught him rolling his eyes. 

“Oh yeah, I’m sure you were fine against that weevil-“

Jack’s head snapped around, and Rentboy blanched, backtracking quickly. “Not that I know what a weevil is, or what that thing is, what is that weird monster thing anyway?”

“What did you say your name was again?” Jack interrupted, narrowing his eyes. Rentboy went pink and muttered “Jones, Ianto Jones.” 

“Captain Jack Harkness, how do you know what a weevil is?” 

“I don’t,” Jones protested quickly. Navir sniffed and then growled. “He’s lying.”

“No, we’re not!” The pup protested, and Navir took a step forward, growling again. 

Jack held out a hand to silence his daemon, giving Ianto another once over."

“You say you don’t know what a weevil is, you don’t. Point is, we got it from here, so thanks for the unneeded assistance.”

With a puff of his chest and a swish of his coat, Jack lead Navir back to the SUV. 

“We need to look him up,” Navir said, “if he knows what a weevil is…” 

“We will,” Jack said, steadying the unconscious weevil on his daemon’s back as they walked. 

“By the way,” Jones called at their backs, “I love the coat.”

Jack couldn't help a smirk. 

* * *

Back at the hub, it didn’t take Jack long to find out who exactly Ianto Jones was. 

“Canary Wharf,” Jack sighed aloud, and Navir let out a deep growl. Jack sighed, nodding. “He denied the offered retcon, and didn’t want the UNIT transfer, but if he’s causing us trouble…” 

He was interrupted by a soft knock on his office door, and he glanced up at Toshiko, with Kya perched atop her shoulder. Jack smiled at her and waved her in. 

“I thought you’d gone home,” Jack said, and Toshiko flushed “just finishing up a few things. I ran that full check you asked for.” 

Jack thanked her and took Ianto Jones’ personal records to add along with his Torchwood one file. Toshiko shifted a little and glanced at him “Jack? Who is he?” 

Jack sighed “he worked for Canary Wharf.”

Toshiko gasped in vague horror, and Jack glanced down at the file in his hand, skimming. Christ, the man was only 23.

“Are we going to hire him?” Kya asked, nuzzling Tosh with her beak. Jack shook his head “retcon.”

Tosh blinked at him, as owlish as her daemon. “Why?”

“He was torchwood one, he can’t be trusted, Tosh.”

Jack looked back at his computer. Tosh was quiet, and then she said: “you shouldn’t judge people based on the things they were forced to do.”

And then she left. 

“I hate it when she guilt trips us,” Navir moaned, hiding his snout under his forepaws. Jack snorted “me too.”

He looked over the file one more time, studying the qualifications.

“... think he’s worth a second conversation?”

“Not particularly, but I can tell you don’t actually care about my opinion.”

“‘Course I do. Tell me you weren’t at least a little intrigued.”

“You just want another look at his butt, Jack.” 

Jack rolled his eyes, sighing. 

His daemon wasn’t wrong though.

* * *

A little bit more hacking had Jack and Navir waiting outside a coffee shop the next day. 

Jones had, apparently, been looking for jobs in Cardiff. Jack didn’t quite understand why he denied both the retcon  _ and  _ the UNIT job. Denying the retcon indicated that he wanted to keep working with aliens- denying the UNIT job indicated the opposite. 

And if he  _ did  _ want a job with aliens… why was he so adamant that he didn’t know what a weevil was? 

Navir picked his head up as the door to the coffee shop opened and Jones- wearing a  _ suit- _ was lead out by a man in a black apron. 

“- Really, I think it would be a good fit for me,” Jones was saying, and the man was nodding gently at him- almost  _ patronizing  _ from Jack’s point of view.

“Yes well, thank you mister Jones-“

“I’ll call-“

“- Actually, we’ll call you. Have a nice day and- good luck, with the job hunt.” 

The man- clearly a barista- closed the door in Jones’ face, and Jones sighed, slumping a little. His daemon rubbed her face against his ankle, whimpering gently. 

Jack has to admit; he felt a pang of sympathy for them. The  _ aftermath  _ of Canary Wharf had been awful, and Jack, for once, hadn’t been in the center of the action. This man had. 

Jack put on his best grin and said: “You know, I think that went well!” 

Jones jumped about a foot in the air, turning to look at him as his eyes slit into a venomous glare. “What are you doing here?” 

“You’re a confounding man, Ianto Jones.”

“And  _ you’re  _ a bloody stalker.” Jones snapped, turning to stalk away. 

Jack left some money on the table for the mediocre coffee he’d been sipping and got up to follow him. 

“You lied to me,” Jack said, catching up to him. Jones cursed under his breath- in  _ welsh  _ no less, which was  _ highly  _ erotic. 

“And you didn’t take that as a sign to, I don’t know,  _ leave me alone?” _

“I like a challenge,” Jack said, grinning at him. “Not that it was a particularly hard one. You’re from torchwood one. One of the twenty-eight survivors of-“

“Twenty-seven.” Jones corrected curtly. “Someone commuted suicide a few days ago. Not that  _ you  _ seem to care.” 

Jack grabbed his arm and spun him around, getting angry now.

“Actually I  _ do  _ care,” Jack said sharply. “But none of you seem to want my help, even though I’m here and I’m  _ offering.”  _

Jones narrowed his eyes again. “What do you know about me?” 

Jack smirked a bit darkly at him. “Ianto Jones. 24, born August 19th, 1983. Registered daemon,” he nodded to the dog by Ianto’s feet, “Emma, settled as a terrier/spaniel mix when you were 12. Dropped out of college in London to work for torchwood one as a junior archivist, one girlfriend, Lisa Hallett-“

“Deceased,” Ianto muttered darkly, pulling his arm out of Jack’s grasp and starting to walk away again- only for Navir to block his path. 

Emma jumped in front of Ianto to bare her teeth at him, and Navir gave her a bored look and gently shoved her onto her butt with his paw. Emma barked in surprise and then sprang to her feet, ready to fight. “Hey! Big bully!”

“Emma,” Jones chastised, “quit it. We’re in public. And he’s twelve times bigger than you.” 

Navir huffed a laugh and Jack rocked back between his heels and the balls of his feet. “If you really want us to leave you alone, fine, we will. But you didn’t take the retcon, which means you don’t want to forget torchwood.”

“I don’t want to forget the 803 people who  _ died,”  _ Ianto said angrily. “The ones who were killed by- oh sorry, the  _ unfortunate victims of a terrorist attack.”  _

Jack groaned “look, we can’t deal with the whole world knowing about aliens yet, It’s not time!”

“Oh, excuse me,  _ sir,  _ I didn’t realize there were a set date and time! Please make sure to forward it to me so that I can mark it on my calendar.” And with that, Jones turned on his heel and walked away. Jack threw his hands up. 

“Oh for the love of- I’m trying to offer you a job!”

“Not interested!” Ianto called over his shoulder, turning to walk backward “I still love the coat though!” 

Jack rolled his eyes dramatically “yeah yeah, nice suit!” 

“Still not interested!” Ianto Jones grinned, turning and walking away.

“We’re absolutely gonna see them again,” Navir snorted, and Jack glanced down at him curiously. 

Navir moved his head in what Jack considered to be a shrug. “I like the dog. She had spunk.” 

Jack snorted and scratched him behind the ears. “Sorry buddy, I gave him his second shot. Ianto Jones isn’t about to come work for us.”

Oh, how wrong he was…

* * *

It was another three weeks before he saw Ianto Jones again. A rainy night and Jack was on his way back from flat holm, which meant he was already in a bad mood. 

So when Ianto Jones stepped in front of his car, Jack was just about done with it all. 

Navir snarled- when Jack was in a snit he was the worst, everyone else at the HUB was afraid of him. Jack huffed and said “stay here. This won’t take long.” 

Jack clambered out into the pouring rain, slamming the door behind him. “Alright, this was cute before but enough’s enough.”

Ianto stepped forward “Captain Harkness-”

“No! I gave you your shot, offered you a job,  _ you _ wanted out.”

“Captain Harkness-”

_ “-You  _ opted out of retcon, you made your decision now live with it.”

_ “Sir-” _

“Any interactions we had are done, finished,  _ finito!  _ Forever! Now I am going to get back in my car and if you're still on the road when I start moving I’m going through you!” Jack roared, and with that final threat, he turned to get back in the car. 

_ “Jack!”  _

Jack froze, noticing the desperate tone in his voice. He turned- and for the first time, he realized those were tear tracks, not rain marks. 

“Jack,  _ please,  _ it has Emma.” 

Attention fully caught, Jack turned to see the pained look and dark circles under Ianto’s eyes. He was far from his daemon and suffering for it. “Please,  _ please,  _ I’ll do anything, I’ll take the retcon or leave Cardiff or whatever, anything just  _ please  _ help me save my other half.”

“Okay,” Jack said, voice softer and more soothing, stepping forward. ‘Okay, Okay, calm down. Where is she?”

“Warehouse, ‘bout half a mile that way.” Ianto pointed, and Jack let out a low whistle. Half a mile was impressive for someone who wasn’t used to be separated. “Get in the car.”

Ianto obligingly climbed into the passenger seat, directing Jack to where his daemon was being held. Jack pressed his foot on the gas “Tell me what happened.”

“Emma and I were interviewing at the shipyard for a bookkeeping position, and it was late and we got lost looking for our car. And then the bloody rift through bloody space and bloody time must’ve opened because suddenly the pterodactyl just swooped-”

Jack slammed on the breaks and sent them both forward against their seatbelts for a second. “I’m sorry did you just say your daemon was taken by a  _ pterodactyl.” _

“It could be a pteranodon,” Ianto said meekly, and Navir huffed from the back seat, looking at Ianto curiously. “How did you get it in a warehouse?”

“Raw meat trail, a few bright lights.” Ianto shrugged, then perked up, “this one!”

Jack stopped and turned off the car, climbing out of the car with a quick “stay here!” 

Of course, when he got around to the back of the car, Ianto was already there, leaning against the brake light. “Like  _ hell  _ am I going to wait in the car, that's my daemon in there.”

“Fine,” Jack said tersely, opening the door so Navir could climb out. “Here’s the plan- We’re going to distract it, I’m going to inject a sedative into its rear cerebral cortex, and Navir is gonna grab Emma.”

Navir nodded, while Ianto frowned.  _ “That’s  _ the plan?”

“You have a better one?”

“I mean- no dinosaur net? Anything like that?”

“We don’t keep dinosaur nets in the SUV.”

“Torchwood one would’ve,” Ianto muttered, and then blinked and realized what he’d said. He looked at Jack with wide eyes. “Sorry.”

Jack crossed his arms, “you want my help?”

“Yes, sorry.”

“Uh-huh, we’ll go with my plan.”

Ianto nodded, and the trio went up to the door, with Jack running point. “Ready?”

The other two nodded again, and Jack kicked open the door… only to see the very large dinosaur flying  _ directly towards them. _

“Nope!” Ianto shouted, grabbing Jack by the elbow and dragging him back out, slamming the door shut and leaning against it. 

“Alright,” Jack said, nodding, “I admit, this would be easier with a dinosaur net.” 

“Complete kit,” Ianto agreed, panting, “it must like your aftershave.”

“Don’t wear any.”

“You smell like that naturally?”

“Fifty-first-century pheromones,” Navir interrupted, “you people have  _ no  _ idea.” 

“Ready to try again?” Jack asked, and Ianto nodded. They went in again, slower and quieter this time. Jack could see Ianto’s daemon huddled in the corner, shaking and a little bloody, but relatively unharmed. 

“Okay,” Jack hissed, “I’ll distract it, you-”

“No, wait, I have a secret weapon.” Ianto reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. “Chocolate, preferably dark. I used it to get her here. The more expensive the better.”

And before Jack could protest, Ianto crept forward, whistling softly and chucking pieces of chocolate on the ground. Sure enough, the pterodactyl landed on the ground in front of him, pecking curiously at it. Jack started creeping towards her, while Navir went wide to get to Emma. 

Jack prepped the needle while Navir gently nudged Emma with his nose. Her leg was busted, and she let out a soft whimper. Navir carefully grabbed her scruff between his teeth, lifting her up- 

But Ianto, unprepared for the ghost of a sensation, yelped and startled the dinosaur, who screeched and grabbed the closest thing in her talons before lifting off.

The closest thing, of course, was Jack. 

Jack did not  _ scream  _ in terror, but he did  _ shout,  _ quite loudly. He heard Navir roar loudly below him and clutched the sedative tighter. He counted to himself, then flexed his arms so that he could stab the syringe into the back of the dinosaur’s head. 

Of course, as the sedative entered her blood system, the pteranodon released her grip on Jack’s arm, and for a moment he was in free fall. He crashed into a warm body, and for a second he thought it was Navir- until he looked down and realized it was Ianto.

“Sorry-” Jack began, but Ianto shrieked  _ “lookout!”  _

He rolled them over just as the pteranodon crashed into the ground where they had just been, unconscious. 

Jack caught his breath, looking at Ianto on top of him and realizing he was  _ laughing.  _ He was laughing long and low, coming down from the adrenaline rush. Jack grinned and then he started to laugh too- both in relief and at the sheer insanity of it all. 

And suddenly, the laughter died, and Jack was laying on the ground with Ianto Jones on top of him, and he was solid and warm and hot and the sexual tension that had been bubbling since that night in the park became unbearable-

“Well,” Ianto muttered, minty breath ghosting across Jack’s face, “you gonna live up to the reputation?”

Jack didn’t need another invitation. He reached up and tangled his hand in Ianto’s hair, kissing him soundly. Ianto kissed him back, eager but controlled. His hands cupped Jack’s face and neck, and there was  _ definitely  _ something in Ianto’s pants. 

It was one of the hottest experiences of recent memory, and Jack grinned into it as he bit Ianto’s top lip. Ianto let out a low groan- and then his head snapped back and he said; “we can’t do this.”

Jack blinked up at him, taking in the flushed cheeks and dilated pupils. He smirked and shifted his leg so it rubbed against Ianto’s crotch. “You sure about that?”

“Nn-  _ yes,  _ because I think I have to accept your- oh god  _ quit that-  _ the job offer, after all this I think I have to accept.”

Jack barked out a surprised laugh and then sat up so he and Ianto were nose to nose again. “‘Kay, job’s yours, let's celebrate.”

He dragged Ianto into another kiss by the lapels of his suit, putting one hand on the ground behind him so he had the leverage to move his hips a little. Ianto grunted and grinded back on instinct, He kept up the movement as he pulled his mouth away from Jack’s. Jack started sliding his mouth along Ianto’s cheek, reveling in the stubbly feeling of his jaw. Ianto panted, “We- we have-  _ fuck _ your gonna be my boss isn’t this a bad-  _ fuck!” _

“Such a dirty mouth,” Jack grinned, nipping at that same spot again. “We got together before I hired you. You didn’t accept the job until after I’d kissed you. Any more objections?”

He jerked his hips upwards and Ianto moaned. “Oh- not here! Not here, not the dirty floor, wouldn’t want to ruin that coat,  _ fuck  _ that feels good.”

As if driving Ianto’s point home, the pteranodon twitched next to him. Jack sighed, reluctantly letting Ianto go. “Fine, we keep this on hold until we get her back to base. But once we’re there, I’m dragging you down to my cot and fucking you into it.”

Ianto shuddered in approval and climbed to his feet. Emma limped over and he scooped her up, taking a moment to hold her to his chest. Jack climbed to his feet too and Navir nudged him with his snout. Jack rested a hand on his partner’s head, shuddering and already daydreaming about all the things he would do to Ianto Jones.

* * *

The next morning, Jack woke up alone. Navir was in the office above him, already awake, and Ianto and Emma were both gone. Jack frowned and got dressed, climbing the stairs to find Navir sitting just outside the door, with Emma asleep on his back. The look he gave Jack was enough that he didn’t ask. 

Wandering around the hub in a suit that he wasn't wearing yesterday was Ianto Jones, prim and proper and carrying a tray with coffee mugs. Toshiko was at her desk early, and Ianto glanced up when Jack came to the door. He smiled politely at him. “Good morning, sir.”

“Morning,” Jack said, blinking when Ianto handed him a coffee. “Navir told me how you take it.”

“Where’d you get this from?”

“Coffee maker in the kitchenette,” Ianto said with a shrug. Jack raised his eyebrows. “That thing hasn't worked in 30 years.”

“Jack, trust me on this, drink the coffee,” Tosh said from her desk. Jack shrugged and took a small sip, then his eyes widened and he took another. “Holy  _ shit, wow-  _ okay, you can consider this your first official responsibility. I mean…  _ wow.” _

Ianto looked downright smug. “Thank you, sir. I assume this means I should start filling out the employment paperwork then? I also ventured into your archives- they are in a  _ horrendous  _ state sir, I politely request permission to organize them.”

“I- well, I guess I’ve hired an archivist,” Jack said, taking another sip of the coffee. “Tosh, pull up the papers?”

“Already printing,” Tosh said, getting up to go to the printer. Jack looked back at Ianto. “By the way, if anyone asks, I hired you for the coffee, not for… the other thing.”

“Of course, sir,” Ianto said. Jack nodded and headed back up to his office. 

“Sir?” Ianto called, and Jack turned to see that his professionalism had faded, just a little. Ianto shuffled awkwardly, and then said “excuse me if I’m being too forward, sir, but… we can… we can  _ do  _ the other thing again… right?”

Jack remembered last night with a smirk, then looked back down at him and winked. " _ Hell _ yeah.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: the 30 page monster chapter that is torchwood season one.


	3. Part 2: Changing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen Cooper enters the scene, and brings with her new points of view- and a lot more changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had all thirty pages of this edited, and then AO3 crashed on me and I lost everything. I don't even like this chapter but for the life of me I cant pinpoint what it is that I don't like. 
> 
> Long story short; Enjoy this kids because it made me shed real actual tears.
> 
> Dedicated to those crazy bastards who agreed to play welsh cannibals.

Seraphine was the one who truly found the strange tourist office by the bay. 

She’d been tracking the scent of that strange man in the coat all day. Gwen was intrigued by him and the way he disappeared and the fact that his daemon was a humongous fucking _black_ _bear_ of all things. She was curious about the scars on his daemon’s back and the creature from the hospital and the glove that…

That  _ looked like it brought someone back from the dead.  _

The pizza place had been Gwen’s idea, and when the man at the desk had said they brought it to the tourist office by the bay, Seraphine had done a little happy dance because they were  _ right.  _

As they walked up to the door, Gwen smirked. “What kind of tourist office is open so late anyway?” she muttered and Seraphine grinned up at her. 

Gwen shoved the door open with her hip and blinked when she found a completely normal tourist office inside. There was a large desk and pamphlets all over the walls that said  _ Visit Wales! _ in big colorful letters. A small white dog with patches of wiry red fur and ears that were somewhere between floppy and pointed was curled up in a dog bed next to the desk. For a moment, Gwen thought it was a normal pet dog, but then it picked up its head and blinked at Gwen before shouting over her shoulder “Pizza’s here!”

A man in a dashing suit came out of the back. He had a gentle smile and dark hair, and he asked: “who’s it for?”

Gwen stared at him for a long moment, taking in the knowing look in his eyes. She replied, in a small voice “Torchwood?”

The man’s smile became a smirk, and a section of the wall opened up. “Emma will lead you down. Don’t keep him waiting.”

The dog- a terrier spaniel mix, Emma- got up and trotted to the open section. She made a follow gesture with her snout and said “Keep close, please.”

Gwen and Seraphine looked at one another, then the man behind the counter, and then ran off down the hallway to follow her down.

There was a large cog door at the bottom of the elevator, and as Emma walked up to it, it rolled open. Red lights flashed, alarms blared, and a giant flying  _ thing  _ screeched as it flew past her. A masked figure was welding something in the corner, a petite asian woman was typing on her computer with a great horned owl perched on her monitor, a man in white stood off to the side petting a large python, and Gwen watched in horror as their guide ran off and jumped onto the back of a fucking  _ bear.  _

Seraphine started to shake, and Gwen’s eyes were wide-

And then someone snorted. 

“Layla!” The man in white scolded, bursting out laughing at his daemon, who started to giggle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m rubbish!”

“He set me off!” The woman at the computer accused. The bear rolled his eyes “C’mon guys, Jack didn’t even get to make his entrance!” 

“Yeah, thanks,” said the man in the coat, coming out of his office. His eyes twinkled and he smirked. “Gwen Cooper? Welcome to Torchwood.”

* * *

Jack had never, in 140 years, seen Navir bond with another person’s Daemon. 

No matter how much Jack had cared for that person, no matter how close they were, how long they were in Jack’s life, Navir had never truly bonded with another daemon in the way that people who are truly in love do. Sure the bear daemon was friendly but never  _ loving.  _ The closest he had really come in their recent years of life was Cherry, Estelle’s gentle little dove who sat on her shoulder or Moses’ head. Navir had let Cherry clean his fur and nip behind his ears. He’d cared about her, but he still hadn’t been upset when Jack had decided it was time for them to let Estelle go. 

Jack supposed it was a sign- Navir was a resigned spirit, who knew he could never truly bond with and stay with another person’s daemon. 

So it was a  _ big  _ shock when Jack realized Navir was absolutely  _ smitten  _ with Emma. 

Bonded or no, Navir only let a few daemons climb all over him the way Emma did. Even if Jack and Ianto were arguing, he and Emma would be found with each other, usually grumbling about how stupid their humans were with their complex emotions and inability to communicate.

In the three months Ianto had been working at Torchwood, Emma had only been caught in the crossfire once- grabbed by a Xanthu and almost shot. 

Navir had tried to rip said Xanthu to shreds, and Jack shuddered to think of the day when Emma, inevitably, got truly hurt while trying to protect Ianto. 

Jack also recognized that the same Xanthu had actually shot Ianto, and he also recognized that he  _ had  _ ripped xem to shreds. 

It was pretty hard to deny you were falling in love with someone when the manifestations of your souls were snuggled up together like an old married couple. He and Ianto didn’t really talk about it- why would they need to, when it was so blatant? 

_ And besides,  _ Jack thought, propping his head up as he watched Ianto snuggle into the pillow,  _ why ruin a good thing? _

Jack spent most of his nights at Ianto’s flat now, sleeping and eating and… making love? Having sex? Wild animal fucking? Whatever it was, they were good at it. Suzie liked to joke that they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. 

And considering that they were currently in Jack’s bunker after an early afternoon quickie… she was probably justified. 

As if summoned by his thoughts, Suzie’s quick, stomping tread came across his office, and he felt more than heard Navir pick up his head and growl at Jakob- Susie’s crow Daemon, who probably tried to land on either Navir or Emma. 

“Boys!” Suzie shouted, “Oi, lovebirds! We have a stiff!”

Ianto groaned, burying his face in the pillow some more. Jack kissed his cheek “why don’t you stay here, yeah? Sleep a little longer.”

“Not like I’d be missed,” Ianto grumbled, half asleep. Jack sighed- he knew the team had a problem with leaving Ianto out. He had a theory about it, but he didn’t want to voice it to Ianto because he didn’t want to be  _ right.  _

Jack clambered out of bed and into the bathroom to wash up and get dressed. He climbed up the ladder to find that Ianto had gone up and was now standing in his office in his trousers and one of Jack’s undershirts. He was buttoning up his shirt when Jack arrived at the top of the ladder, and instinctively paused what he was doing to help Jack into his coat. 

Jack shifted it on his shoulders, grinning and pecking Ianto on the forehead. “Order some pizza and have coffee ready when we get back? Thanks. Navir! C’mon, you lazy lug we got a body to play with!” 

Navir grunted and got to his feet, Emma hopping off his back to lick his snout once before going over to rub up against Ianto’s leg. Navir grinned as best he could, baring his teeth and heading over to follow Jack into the SUV. 

Jack had never liked the glove tests Suzie insisted on, noting the obvious faults- it only worked for two minutes, the daemon didn’t come back with the person- and the more low key ones- he wasn’t an idiot, he knew the ethics of bringing someone back for the sake of a scientific test were morally grey at  _ best.  _

But Suzie has begged and pleaded and bitched, so Jack had let her experiment with it. 

He’d admit later that without the glove, Gwen Cooper would’ve never pushed her way into their lives. She would’ve never confronted Suzie and Jack would’ve never shot her.

As he watched Jakob disappear in a cloud of gold dust, Jack decided to hire Gwen Cooper. 

* * *

The CCTV footage was playing on Tosh’s laptop, had been since Suzie snuck up to go and meet with Gwen Cooper. 

Ianto was a bit further back, separated from the group as he always was, which is why when Suzie pointed the gun at Jack, Ianto was the only one who noticed Navir dart off into the hallway that led to the archives. 

Emma blinked and immediately followed, and Ianto sighed and went after her. 

They got there just in time to see Navir let out a pained roar and dissipate into a cloud of dust. 

Ianto’s heart turned to lead, and Emma  _ screamed. _ In an instant Ianto had crouched down and hugged his trembling daemon close to his chest, hushing her. 

“Navi! He’s gone, he’s just- gone!”

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay-“

“How is it okay?! He’s  _ dusted!” _

“And he and Jack come back, remember? Look, the dust isn’t fading.”

And it was true. Unlike when other daemons died, the dust was just there, floating a few inches above the ground, waiting to reform. 

Emma sniffed, watching the cloud of gold like a hawk. “I didn’t realize he dusted every time Jack dies.”

“I didn’t either,” Ianto muttered. And at the same moment, the dust congealed and darkened and a second later Navir was there, shaking himself as if he was wet. 

He barely got the time to blink before Emma was shooting out of Ianto’s arms and crashing into his side, crying  _ “Navi!”  _ And practically shoving him to the ground. 

Ianto chuckled at their antics, then sighed.

If Navir was back, Jack was back. Everything was right again. 

* * *

Later that day, Jack noticed that Ianto seemed shaky and that Emma hadn’t moved at all from where she had tucked her face under Navir’s chest. 

“We knew you died,” Ianto explained when Jack asked. “Your stack of employee files is taller than my daemon, I guessed… I mean, I don’t get how, but… Emma never realized that Navir disappeared every time you die.”

Jack winced, watching his daemon nuzzle Ianto’s. “Yeah. Navir just… well, he dissolves. I die and he dissolves, same as anyone else. Then I come back and he comes back. Thank god, I would’ve lost my mind decades ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Ianto said, “I’m so sorry that you have to go through that.” 

No  _ how did it happen,  _ no  _ how old are you.  _

Just,  _ sorry.  _

Jack had to kiss him for that, he had to. 

* * *

Gwen’s first days were… hectic to say the least.

Well, her first day in particular. It led to the deaths of 12 men via sex alien. That was odd even by torchwood standards, and that was a pretty low bar. 

Then there was the ghost machine, and the hallucinations and Owen and Layla having some pretty terrible panic attacks. He knew that when Owen thought of any dead girl he thought of Katie, and how awful losing her had been. He had seen Layla in the immediate aftermath- she had been even more broken than Owen was at Katie’s death. 

Jack had no doubt that poor Lizzie, assaulted and left for dead, had dragged up things Owen had wanted to forget. 

Throughout it all, Ianto stuck mainly to the hub, quiet and assured and assisting with whatever they needed. Emma had taken to helping with his gopher duties, bringing Tosh files in her teeth and Owen supplies tied to her back. Tosh always said thank you, Gwen had taken on Owen’s habit of responding to Ianto with a glance or patronizing words. 

If Jack was a better boss, he would’ve said something. If Jack was a better lover, he would’ve called them out on it. 

But he wasn’t and he didn’t, and what happened next was worse because of it. 

* * *

It all started the day they found a Cyberwoman in a basement. 

Tosh had been getting strange energy readings from a recently bought house in the name of Matthew Tucker. After three weeks and six unanswered emails, they’d decided to go and investigate. 

Jack took Gwen and Owen with him initially. Seraphine and Layla got into a fight in the back seat and Navir had to growl to shut them up, nudging the rattler away from the dalmatian with his snout. Jack sighed as Owen and Gwen took up the bickering instead- He wished Ianto had come. 

They arrived at the house- a run-down place with the nearest neighbor a hundred feet away in either direction. Jack knocked on the door, “Hello! This is James Howard from the power company, I need to speak with Matthew Tucker or whoever is home!”

When that got no response, Jack banged on the door again, “this is the police, open up!” 

Gwen glared at him, and Jack shrugged.  _ Well, if  _ that  _ got no response.  _ Jack kicked the door right beneath the handle, and it swung open, lock snapping off with a loud bang. 

“Jack! This is private property!” Gwen protested, and Jack gave her a look. “Torchwood, remember? That means  _ nothing  _ to me.”

“Well  _ I’m  _ not going in,” Seraphine said, a bit snootily. Layla flicked her tongue at her, slithering across the threshold. “You just stay out here then.” Navir rolled his eyes and followed Layla inside, followed by Jack and Owen and Gwen. 

Seraphine ended up going too. She and Gwen always stuck close together.

The house was barely furnished, and the cabinets only contained a few canned foods- the freezer had tv dinners, things that could be made with little to no effort. 

“Someone’s living cheap,” Gwen said, and Seraphine sniffed the air, “or living quick. I hear something in the basement.”

_ “That’s where the signals are coming from,” _ Tosh said in Jack’s ear. Navir frowned, swiveling his ears. “It sounds mechanical. Like a ventilator.” 

“There’s definitely a person down there,” Layla said, flicking her tongue. Owen picked her up and she curled contentedly around his shoulders. 

Jack pulled out his gun as Navir led the way to the basement stairs. Jack went down first.

And then he froze.

The basement was empty, except for a cyber conversion unit containing a woman with dark skin and bright silver coverings creeping over her skin like some sick bondage outfit. 

A cyberman. Cyber _ woman,  _ Jack felt his gut twist uncomfortably. “Owen! Down here!” 

Jack didn’t turn around to watch the medic come down, he heard him reach the bottom when Owen started spitting curses. He hurried past Jack to check her over, and Jack tapped his comm. 

“Tosh, we need additional supplies. We have a cyberman here.” 

_ “Fuck,”  _ Ianto said, voice trembling, “ _ Jack, is it active?” _

“Doesn’t look it, it’s still hooked up to a conversion unit.” Jack paused, hesitating, before asking in a low voice “are you able to handle this?”

_ “... I’m fine. Tosh and I will be there shortly.”  _ Ianto said before he cut their connection. 

Jack sighed. He’d held Ianto through enough nightmares, he wasn’t fine. He turned back to where Owen and Layla were examining the Half-Converted Cyberwoman. 

“She’s got her own heartbeat, and the ventilator isn’t doing her breathing so much as guiding it.”

“Does she have any brain activity?”

“Dunno. Gwen ran out to the SUV to get us a better scanner, but this is a pretty comprehensive set up- if there isn’t a monitor I’d wager that its because it doesn’t need monitoring.”

“Check anyway, we need to know if she’s gonna wake up.” Jack walked away, examining the perimeter of the empty basement. He paused when he felt Navir nudge him with his snout. 

“How’d she get here?” Navir asked, and Jack sighed. “The most likely conclusion is that she was at canary wharf, but if she was how did she get  _ here? _ And how did we  _ and  _ UNIT miss this?” 

Gwen came back down the stairs with the scanner, Seraphine taking up her post pacing at the bottom of the basement stairs. There was only one entrance and exit to the basement- and it was really just one big, unfinished hole in the ground. 

“Shit, her brain’s in overdrive,” Owen said, “with these readings, I’m shocked her heart rate is so steady.” 

“What exactly is a cyberman?” Gwen asked, and Jack swallowed thickly while Navir explained. 

“They’re a race of beings whose goal is to convert and “upgrade” everyone in the universe. They wipe out emotion and free will. This one is partially converted-” 

There were footsteps upstairs. Everyone froze. 

“Tosh would’ve called,” Layla said, curling tighter. Jack pulled out his gun, and Navir moved to the front of the group at the bottom of the stairs. 

There were creaks as whoever it is moved to the top of the stairs. The door opened. 

Jack couldn’t see what was happening, but he heard a male voice with a distinctly eastern English accent say  _ “shit!”  _ and heard him run. 

Before Navir could move or Jack could say an order, a black and white blur shot up the stairs and there was a loud thump as the man was tackled. Jack glanced at Gwen, who smirked back at him. 

Jack grinned, “I knew there was a reason I hired you.” 

Jack and Gwen went upstairs to cuff their man and haul him back downstairs. Jack quickly searched his pockets while Gwen scratched Seraphine behind the ears. 

The man Seraphine had tackled was stout and fat, red of face with thinning blonde hair and a stubby nose. Jack pulled a wallet out of his pocket and pointed his gun at the man with one hand. 

“Matthew Tucker, I presume?” Jack asked, flipping open the wallet. “Driver's license is registered to London. You wanna tell me who that is?” 

He cocked his head towards the conversion table. 

“Guys?!” Tosh called from upstairs. “Down here!” Gwen shouted back. 

“I’ll ask again,  _ who is she?!”  _ Jack growled. 

Matthew didn’t answer, but there was a thump behind him and a desperately familiar welsh voice cried  _ “Lisa?!” _

All eyes turned to Ianto, who had just dropped one of the kits halfway down the stairs. Emma gasped and ran past him, jumping the last few steps to run over to the woman. 

“You know who she is?” Owen growled, reaching for his gun. Jack shot him a look “Owen-”

“Her name is Lisa Hallett,” Ianto whispered, “She’s… she was my girlfriend.”

Owen swore and Gwen pulled her gun to point it at him. Jack growled, not moving  _ his  _ gun away from Matthew Tucker. “What are you two doing?”

“He knows her, how do we know he isn’t involved in this?” Owen snarled. Gwen nodded “We have to investigate all our options, Jack.”

“Ianto? How do you know a cyberman?” Tosh asked from behind him, sounding fearful. 

“Lisa?” Emma asked, drawing all the attention. Emma was standing on her hind legs, licking her hand. “Lisa, wake up. Where’s Alex? Is he here too? Lisa?”

Emma’s whimper was pitiful, and a tear ran down Ianto’s face.

“I found her,” Ianto cried, “I found her after the battle. When we couldn’t find Alex I knew she was gone, so I left her there.”

“Of course you did,” Matthew Tucker grumbled, speaking for the first time. Ianto’s head whipped around. Matthew sneered. “Stupid obsessive Ianto Jones, from the archives. You were never good enough for her.”

“Matthew Tucker,” Ianto whispered, “I thought the name sounded familiar.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Jack asked, and Ianto swallowed. “I thought he was dead too. He wasn’t one of the survivors.”

“Survivors of  _ what?  _ What the fuck are you talking about?” Owen said, gun still trained on Ianto.

“Canary Wharf,” Ianto said, taking a cautious step down the stairs. “I found Lisa after canary wharf.” 

Dead silence. Owen, in shock, lowered his gun. Ianto came the rest of the way down the stairs and crossed to stand next to Lisa. Gwen tried to protest, but Navir growled at her, and Gwen lowered her gun too. 

“Teaboy was torchwood one?!” Owen said, and Tosh came down the stairs with wide eyes. 

“I’d forgotten,” she said, “I forgot that search you had me do.”

“Torchwood One was London, right?” Gwen said, “But I thought Canary Wharf was a terrorist attack.”

“That would’ve been better,” Ianto said darkly, making Emma whimper. “Would’ve taken terrorists over aliens that wanted to torture and convert you duking it out with aliens that just wanted to kill you.”

“I thought you hired the teaboy because he let you fuck him,” Owen said, and Navir snarled at him, moving closer until Owen held up his hands. Jack opened his mouth to tear him a new one, but Ianto was talking again. 

“Lisa?” Ianto said quietly, “Lisa can you hear me? It’s me…”

And sure enough, her eyes opened. 

“Ian...to?” 

Emma licked her fingers again, and Ianto gave her a trembling smile. “Hey, hey you.” 

Lisa’s lips quirked up into a smile “Ianto…” then she frowned. “Hurts. Where's ... where's Alex.” 

Ianto choked on a sob, and he ducked his head, bending down to press a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’ll find him. Emma will keep you company while you sleep, okay?”

“... love you…” she breathed, closing her eyes again. Emma whimpered and Ianto swiped his hand across his eyes, picking his daemon up and setting her on the conversion table so that Emma was curled between Lisa’s left arm and chest. 

“What the fuck,” Matthew said angrily, straining against his handcuffs, “what the fuck, I spend weeks with her and she responds to  _ you?!  _ You fucking bastard!” 

Ianto picked up his head to glare at him with more venom in his eyes than Jack had ever seen from him. “I’m the bastard?  _ I’m  _ the bastard here?! You kept her alive without her daemon, that’s a fucking form of  _ torture!”  _

“I’m without mine, I’m fine! I was saving her!” Matthew screamed, “I was fixing her, making her perfect! We would’ve survived together! We would’ve made each other okay, without our daemons- you didn’t even love her enough to pull her out!” 

Ianto let out a furious roar and charged at him, only for Jack to grab him. Ianto struggled in his grip, tears streaming down his face.

“You’re right,” he spat, “you’re right. I didn’t deserve her, not for one second. But I did love her, I loved her enough to let her go.” 

He shoved Jack away from him, eyes full of fury as he pulled out his gun. 

Later, Jack would remember that Emma must’ve known because she moved and ran across the room to hide behind Ianto’s legs. 

“And I love her enough to do it again.”

And then Ianto fired off one shot, directly into the chest of Lisa Hallett. 

The monitors went crazy, and Matthew Tucker started screaming. 

Jack didn’t care. 

Ianto’s knees buckled, and he buried his face in his hands. The agonized sound he made was akin to a dying animal. 

“Oh my god,” Gwen muttered. Then she jumped to action and dragged Matthew upstairs with Tosh and Navir‘s help. Owen shut off all the monitors. 

Jack touched Ianto’s shoulder, only for him to flinch away and curl up tighter on himself. Jack swallowed, and his voice shook when he said “Ianto-“

Then he cleared his throat, forcing himself to be the leader. “Ianto, go wait outside.” 

Ianto sobbed once more, then ran a hand down his face “I have to-“

“You already did good,” Jack said, grasping Ianto’s shoulder and not letting him flinch away this time. “Now go outside and make sure Tucker doesn’t escape from the back of that SUV before I can retcon him back to diapers.” 

Ianto sniffed, then nodded stiffly and muttered; “yes  _ sir.”  _

He scooped Emma up and went up the stairs. 

“I didn’t think the teaboy had it in him,” Owen muttered, and Jack turned to him with a dark fury in his eyes that made Layla back away from him even if Owen didn’t. 

“If you ever,” Jack said slowly, “and I mean ever, imply that Ianto is unqualified or accuse me of hiring someone because of sex again, I’ll kill you.” 

Owen nodded as the girls came back down the stairs. Navir paused at the top, and Jack moved closer so he could nod at him.

Navir nodded back, going outside to wait with Ianto and Emma. 

“I can’t believe he did that,” Gwen said, staring at the body of Lisa Hallett. “He said he loved her.” 

“He did,” Jack said. “He loves the girl he knew at Canary Wharf, the one who’s been dead for six months now. There’s no way to come back from even a partial cyber conversion. Ianto did exactly what he was supposed to do.”

“You approve of him shooting people?”

“In this case, I commend him for it.”

* * *

They burned the entire house to the ground rather than force Ianto to watch them load Lisa’s body in the car. Matthew Tucker sat unconscious in the back- with a black eye that hadn’t been there when he left the basement. 

“He tried to get away,” Ianto muttered darkly, and Jack honestly couldn’t care that he was lying.

They went back to the hub, and Jack waited until the others were busy with paperwork before calling Ianto into his office. 

“Go home,” Jack said with no lead-in, “Take four weeks, call it bereavement leave.”

“I’ve already mourned Lisa, Jack.” Ianto said, but he was pale and his eyes were haunted and “I don’t care, call it cool down then, just  _ stand down,  _ Ianto, please.”

“I can do my job, sir.” Ianto bit out, “I can be useful, I need to be useful.” 

He wouldn’t look at Jack, and he sat stiffly in one of the office chairs. Jack’s eyes narrowed “Ianto… are you thinking about what Owen said?"

To his credit, Ianto didn’t bother to skirt around the issue. “Yes.” 

Jack sighed. “Ianto, look-“

“He thought that I’d-“ Ianto bit his lip. “I’ve never been so insulted in my  _ life,  _ Jack.” 

“You seriously care what Owen thinks?” 

“I care that my coworkers think I’m not qualified to do my job, that I slept my way into my position like some fucking  _ whore!”  _

“Ianto, you don’t have anything to prove-“

“Yes I do, I need to prove I can do this, I need to prove I’m up to snuff and I need to do it without you protecting me!”

Jack’s hands slammed down on his desk as he shot to his feet, leaning forward. “Well tough shit, because I’m  _ always  _ going to want to protect you!” 

The ensuing silence was tense, and Ianto stared at him. “I… Jack, I…” 

Ianto shook himself, looking away. “One week. I’ll take one week. But I need you not to visit me, I… I need to clear my head.” 

Jack forced himself to count to ten, then nodded. “Fine. One week.” 

Ianto got up, nodding once. He went outside of Jack’s office. “Oi! When I get back this hub had better not be a disaster zone! And no one touches the coffee maker. Emma, c’mon, we’re going on forced leave.” 

Jack watched the pair of them go. As Navir watched Emma go, his expression had all the heartbreak that Jack felt. 

* * *

Ianto held it together until he got in the door.

The moment the door shut his knees gave out again, and he fell to the floor, gasping as if there wasn’t enough air in the room.

“Ianto!” Emma cried, but her voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel. Ianto forced himself to keep breathing in and out, sitting back so he was leaning against the door. Tears were streaming down his face and after a long moment, Emma climbed in his lap to lick them away. 

“We couldn’t have known,” Emma said softly, nuzzling her head under Ianto’s chin. “We couldn’t have possibly known.”    
  


* * *

Sure enough, for a week Jack didn’t see Ianto. 

When he came back, Ianto’s professionalism was intensely meticulous, and it didn’t go away after hours. 

Emma didn’t let Navir get within three feet of her, and Jack stayed in his bunker, alone. 

* * *

Jack hadn’t dreamed of the fairies in years, dreaming of them now could only be some kind of omen. 

Sure enough, as he jerked awake, Navir was there, nuzzling his stomach. 

“Ianto’s here.” He muttered, and Jack sighed, scratching his daemon behind the ears. “You okay, buddy?”

Navir let out a little grunt, not really responding. Jack scratched him again, then got up and put on a white undershirt and the pair of pants he was wearing yesterday. He climbed up the ladder barefoot, seeing Ianto standing at his desk in the main hub. Emma was laying under the desk quietly- that was the biggest sign that the pair wasn’t okay. Emma was never quiet. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Jack said as Navir hauled himself up the ladder. Ianto jumped a little, looking back at him. For a split second, Jack expected to be yelled at. Then Ianto said, “Neither should you, hasn’t stopped you yet.”

He turned back to the computer, and Jack wandered over. This was the closest Ianto had let Jack be to him since the thing with Lisa, and Jack took a moment to revel in the warmth radiating from him, the smell of his aftershave. He’d missed him so much. 

Suddenly, before he could process that it was a bad idea, Jack reached out to lay a hand on Ianto’s shoulder. Ianto jumped a little, looking back at him in surprise. 

Jack inhaled quickly, ready to apologize, but Ianto didn’t say anything. His eyes softened a little, got sadder, and he even moved a little closer to Jack. 

Emma let out a little noise, and Jack felt more than saw Navir physically restrain himself from moving. 

“What do you got?” Jack said, and Ianto looked back at the computer. “Funny sort of weather patterns.”

Jack tensed- The fairies, the fairies controlled the weather. 

“Jack?” Ianto asked, and Jack stepped back, nodding. “Good work, keep me updated.” 

Ianto nodded, and Jack went up to his office. 

There was a rose petal on his desk.

* * *

Ianto made a sassy comment about magic mushrooms over the team meeting, and despite the growing panic in his chest, Jack clung to the moment of normality.

* * *

After Jasmine goes with the fairies, Jack locks himself in his office. He doesn’t want to deal with the team's anger, or Ianto’s distance or anything else. He wants to mourn for Estelle and Jasmine in peace.

Which is why he’s surprised when, after he hears everyone leave, Ianto knocks on his door with two coffees on his tray. 

Jack ran a hand down his face before nodding. Navir opened the door with his teeth and Jack didn’t bother looking up as he sighed “I really don’t want to get yelled at right now, Ianto.”

“No yelling, just Irish coffee,” Ianto said, stepping into the office. “Something to space out the straight whiskey.” 

Jack glanced at the half-empty decanter on the desk, then gestured for Ianto to sit down. 

Ianto placed his coffee in front of him, then sat to sip his own. Emma hopped up on his lap, laying down so that Ianto could pet her.

Jack took a sip of the perfectly made coffee, sighing “why are you still here?” 

“I made coffee?”

“No,” Jack looked him in the eye, “why the  _ fuck  _ are you still with torchwood? You lost everything, you could’ve died and then you came back. You got accused of terrible things, lost your girlfriend, and you came back  _ again.  _ If I didn’t know you weren’t I’d say you were certifiable.”

“First of all, Lisa was already dead, remember?” Ianto started quietly. “Second, I don’t exactly have anywhere else.”

“You could find something,” Jack muttered. “You're a genius.”

“A genius without a college degree,” Emma snorted, and Ianto took a long swig of his coffee. Jack blinked curiously, and Ianto sighed “Torchwood hired me out of college. I never finished my degree. Not like I could do anything much with a history degree anyway.”

“History? Really?” Jack asked, intrigued. Ianto chuckled “yeah, well, until a few months before I dropped out it was financial business.” 

He shuddered, and Jack chuckled, then sighed “still. There’s gotta be something you could do.”

“Well if I hadn’t gone to college I’d still be the drug-addicted gang member I was  _ before  _ college,” Ianto said casually, and Jack gaped at him. Even Navir had picked up his head to stare at them.

Ianto smiled sadly. “Lisa saved my life. She recruited me for torchwood right when I was getting clean. If she hadn’t I would’ve ended up right back where I started.” 

“... I never told you I’m sorry.” Jack whispered. “I never once said I’m sorry for your loss.” 

Ianto raised his cup in acknowledgment and then took a swig. “Sorry for yours. Estelle sounded amazing from what I heard about her.” 

“She was. She was bright and beautiful… you would’ve liked her. Quiet and stubborn, just like you.” 

“Lisa was loud and stubborn,” Ianto laughed. “She took everything in life with two hands and no helmet. She was so full of  _ life…”  _ he trailed off. 

Navir got up, padded across the room and rested his head in Ianto’s lap next to Emma. Ianto chuckled again, softly.

“She sounds fantastic.” 

“She was.” Ianto sighed, and then looked up at Jack. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

Jack blinked “out of here like…”

“My flat,” Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to come back to my flat. You shouldn’t be alone tonight. It’s cold out, if you do your whole moping on roofs thing you’ll catch your death. C’mon, it’ll just be to sleep.” 

Jack stared at him. “You heard the part where I gave a small child to a menacing fairy right?”

Ianto shrugged. “You did what you had to. Do you want to come or not?” 

“Yes,  _ please.” _

Ianto smiled and then stood up grabbing the empty coffee cups and Jack’s whiskey glass. “I’ll just put these in the sink and then we can go.” 

Jack nodded as Ianto and Emma left, and Navir looked at him. “He’s warming back up to us.” 

“Don’t you dare push it, Navi.” 

“I should be telling you that.” 

Jack sighed, capping the whiskey decanter. He gazed upwards for a moment, pretending he could see the stars. “You would’ve liked him, you would’ve liked him so  _ much, _ Estelle.” 

“C’mon you two! I’ll leave without you, I will.” 

Jack chuckled, grabbing his coat and rushing out after him.

* * *

The next few weeks saw Ianto becoming more like the Ianto who existed before the Lisa incident. The sassy, gorgeous one that Jack had fallen… 

Not that Ianto wasn’t gorgeous all the time, but he was smiling more, and he’d worked up the courage to banter with Owen again. 

All he needed was the opportunity to prove himself in the field outside of shooting a Cyberwoman, something to really drive the point home that Owen’s theory had been wrong. Luckily, Jack heard of a missing person’s case in the countryside- a few days away from the hub and civilization, the perfect team bonding opportunity.

He announced it to the team as they went home, and told them to pack for camping- to various not so positive reactions. 

Whatever. This would be good for the team. 

Bright and early the next morning Ianto helped Jack load the camping supplies into the SUV. Of course, the real challenge wasn’t the packing, it was getting Navir into the back of the car. 

Jack gave his daemon’s behind another shove. “Oh, c’mon you big lug it’s just a few hours!”

“No! It’s going to be cramped back there, I can run alongside and keep up with the SUV!”

“I need to  _ drive  _ and I can’t do that if you're trying to keep up with a car traveling on the freeway!” 

“Then I won’t go!” 

_ “Navir!”  _

Really, for such an old man, Jack’s daemon could be so  _ childish.  _ With an exhausted groan, Jack stepped back, leaving Navir half outside of the SUV. 

“Still not in yet?” Ianto asked, coming in with an industrial first aid kit. 

“No.” Jack pouted, and Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh for the love of God…” 

She trotted over to Navir’s feet and looked up at him pointedly. “If I ride in the back with you will you stop being such a baby?” 

Navir craned his neck so that he could look back at her, eyes hopeful. “Really?” 

“Yeah, just get in.” 

Navir obligingly climbed on top of all the camping supplies and into the boot. Emma wriggled a bit and then sprung up to clamber on top of him, curling up in his scruff. 

Jack beamed at them, and Ianto sighed, placing the first aid kit under the passenger's seat. “I don’t get why I need to come anyway.”

“It’s team building Ianto, it’s good for us.  _ Oi! _ You guys, we’re ready! Load up!!” 

* * *

Tosh loved road trips because Kya got to fly alongside the car and explore and even hunt. Tosh loved looking out the window to see her daemon soaring through the air, it was the best feeling in the world. 

They arrived in the countryside, climbing out of the SUV and helping one another unpack. Navir practically  _ jumped  _ out of the trunk, and Tosh caught Jack rolling his eyes. But even more interesting than that, Emma hopped out after him, avoiding everyone’s eyes. Ianto sighed, and Emma and Navir didn’t speak to one another for the rest of the night. 

Curse the soundproofed trunk of the SUV. 

Kya flew down as Tosh day at their meager campfire. She extended her arm on instinct, and while Kya’s talons would bite into other people, they curved around her forearm perfectly, not even scraping the cloth of her jacket. 

Owen came over with Layla curled into a tight ball in his arms. He looked disgruntled and as they came closer it was evident the snake was cursing the “bloody countryside and its bloody cold weather.” 

Tosh imagines Layla in one of those adorable little snake sweaters and giggled, and Gwen plopped down at almost the same time as Owen. “Alright, alright- who was your last snog?” 

“What are we, twelve?” Owen griped. Tosh shrugged “oh c’mon Owen, there’s a campfire, it’ll be fun.” 

“Mine was Rhys,” Gwen gushed, as Jack and Ianto came to take seats around the fire. Owen snorted. “Typical.” 

_ “Oi,”  _ Gwen said, irritated, then she turned to Tosh, eyes curious. Tosh blushes, as Kya cocked her head and said “Owen.” 

Layla finally poked her head out of the ball she’d curled up in, and Owen frowned at her. “What? When?”

“Last Christmas. It was 3 am on the Plass, You were tipsy and I had mistletoe.” Tosh said primly, hoping to god that the bright red flush on her cheeks would be attributed to the cold. 

“You haven’t had a kiss since Christmas?” Owen asked, and Tosh squirmed in her seat, bringing Kya closer to her. 

“Huh. Ours was Gwennie over there,” Layla said, and Gwen went bright red.  _ “Oi!  _ We agreed-“

“Yeah yeah, never mention it, it was a mistake, blah blah,” Owen waved a hand at her. “You started this. Anyway, I guess we shouldn’t even bother with the love birds, huh?” 

Jack grinned a little and opened his mouth- probably to happily describe the last time he’d made out with Ianto- but Ianto’s quiet voice interrupted him to say “mine was some guy at a bar.” 

The resounding silence was  _ awkward,  _ and Ianto just kept on talking, staring at the fire. “It was during my suspension after… he was a nice enough bloke, nothing to write home about. Gave me his number.” 

The only sound was the crackling of the fire, even the  _ wind  _ had fallen silent to avoid the awkwardness when suddenly Jack shot to his feet and shouted “firewood! Me and Navir, Uh, we’re gonna get more firewood. Yeah.” 

And then the team's big damn hero, the great Captain Jack Harkness- for lack of a better word-  _ fled. _

* * *

Later on, Ianto would wish that the stupid snog game was the worst part of Jack’s  _ team bonding  _ exercise. 

They heard Jack shout for them, found a body, and the  _ fucking SUV  _ got stolen, and now they were wandering through the countrycide, looking for it. 

“And remind me again,” Ianto growled,  _ “Who  _ left the keys in the ignition?”

“Oh shut up!” Owen snapped, and Emma growled at him, causing Layla to bare her fangs. Navir let out a roar loud roar, and both of them shrank back. 

“Enough, both of you!” Jack snapped. They fell silent obediently, walking in sullen silence. There was a flap of wings, and Kya landed smoothly on Tosh’s arm. “The SUV is parked in the village, it’s not far. But the tires are slashed.”

“Great,” Owen grumbled, and Tosh nodded, bumped heads with Kya, and watched her take off again. “She’ll go stay with the SUV,” Tosh explained. “So when we get there what’s-“ 

Suddenly Tosh froze. Her face paled, her eyes closed, and she started to shake. Owen immediately jumped into doctor mode and went to her side. “Tosh? What’s wrong?”

“Kya,” Tosh groaned, hand coming up to her temple. “She’s-“ her eyes snapped open. “Someone pulled her out of the sky. I don’t think she’s been shot, more... netted. Captured.” 

“We have to get to that village,” Jack said, and off they went. 

Of course, as soon as they get there they split up because Jack clearly had never watched a horror movie,  _ ever.  _ In his  _ life.  _

Ianto woke up in a filthy basement full of shoes and human meat and Emma was gone but her ankle was broken he could feel it and he  _ panicked.  _

He’d never been good with small spaces, and the  _ smell  _ just reminded him far too much of Canary Wharf, and what was the  _ point  _ of arming the human race against alien threats when humans would happily destroy  _ themselves?  _

Tosh was a good friend, she let him get it out of his system. Then she very politely told him to calm the fuck down, and together they dealt with what came next. 

(What came next was people pointing guns at them, holding up two bags with their daemons in them, and Ianto head butting a man with a gun so Tosh could grab Kya and run. Then the man hit Ianto  _ with  _ the gun and everything was bad after that) 

* * *

Owen hated the countryside because it was cold and his daemon was cold-blooded and he hated the countryside because Jack and Ianto couldn’t get their shit together and Tosh hadn’t had a kiss since Christmas and she was so  _ beautiful  _ how could she-

Anyway, Gwen got shot. And Tosh and Ianto went off the radar all at the same time. Jack was panicking, Gwen was panicking, and suddenly Owen was the level headed one. The kid, Kieran or whatever, he said he could lead them to where Tosh and Ianto were being kept, only for them to get caught by a cannibal, a  _ fucking  _ Cannibal on the way there.

And then, oh, and then Tosh came stumbling out of the bushes and  _ relief  _ flooded Owen’s entire body, and he actually thought he might cry. 

“Ianto,” she sobbed as soon as they got the gag off her, “Ianto’s still back there, Emma’s hurt so he couldn’t run, he sacrificed himself so we could get away-“ 

Kya has clipped feathers, and Owen felt Layla’s  _ fury  _ and it took him by surprise, just a little. He never thought he’d be happy for the police to arrive, but they  _ did  _ and then- 

“You gonna arrest me, Huw?” 

The police officer  _ chuckled,  _ and oh god, the police were on the side of the cannibals, the fucking  _ cannibals.  _

Owen watched as Gwen’s entire world view crumbled before her eyes, and one by one the three of them were cuffed. Seraphine, still weak from the gunshot earlier, growled lowly but couldn’t fight them when they muzzled her. Layla and Kya were stuffed in burlap sacks. 

The farmhouse stank of blood and Owen had never particularly  _ liked  _ Ianto but that didn’t make it any easier to see him on his knees on the dirty ground,  _ screaming  _ as a knife was held to his throat. 

They were gonna die, they were gonna  _ die,  _ they were gonna- 

Owen couldn’t watch. He closed his eyes.  _ I’ll see you soon Katie…  _

And then, oh, and then Jack Harkness came bursting through a wall on a tractor and Owen wanted to kiss him, but he figured he’d leave that to Ianto. 

Navir roared in after him, charging at the first cannibal and raising his claws- only for Gwen to scream  _ “stop!”  _

Jack and Navir both stared at her, furious, and Gwen clambered to her feet. “We can’t kill them, they’re just people, it’s wrong-“

“They’re  _ monsters!”  _ Navir snapped. “And they tried to eat people!” 

“I need to  _ understand,  _ I need to- I need-“ 

And then, Ianto let out a whimper, and Jack’s eyes snapped to him, saw him- saw  _ Ianto  _ the person that he- gagged and bruised and tied up like an animal that they were going to  _ slaughter. _

Owen watched his face and realized that he was a fool for believing it was ever just  _ sex.  _

“Sorry Gwen, you’re curiosity is gonna have to go unsatisfied,” Jack said, and Navir brought his claws down into the chest of the screaming monster below him. 

* * *

Gwen couldn’t look at the team. 

Obviously the people of the Brecon Beacons were  _ monsters,  _ obviously, they deserved punishment, but  _ death? _

Jack killed them,  _ all of them,  _ and the others just stood there and  _ watched.  _ The police showed up and they all blatantly lied and said it was self-defense, and when Gwen tried to say it wasn’t the cops just gently patted her arms and said: “sure it was love, it’s alright, don’t feel too guilty now.”

God, had  _ she  _ sounded that patronizing when she was a copper?

When the cops finally released her she marched over to Jack to have a word with him, only to find him arguing with Owen. 

“Teaboy is an adult, I can’t  _ make him  _ do anything.”

“He was tenderized with a baseball bat! Knock him out and put him in the back of an ambulance!” 

“Jack,” Gwen interrupted, and he turned to her and his eyes- his eyes were tired, and sad, and  _ terrified  _ and suddenly most of Gwen’s anger died on her tongue. She just- she just-

“Can we go?” She asked, suddenly exhausted. “The cops are done with us. I want Rhys.” 

Jack blinked, clearly expecting a fight. Then his eyes softened, and he nodded. “Tosh is already in the back. Ianto is taking shotgun so his ribs don’t get squished.”

They went over to the SUV, where Ianto was standing, clutching Emma and for once looking like the barely legal young adult that he was. Jack touched his arm and muttered something quietly to him, which he nodded to. Navir climbed in the boot and- Ianto blinked at him, then walked over and set Emma down on his front paws. 

The terrier let out a soft whimper and curled into Navir’s fur, and Navir just blinked tiredly and nuzzled her. 

Ianto climbed in the front, and Owen slid in the middle seat before Gwen got in last. Tosh was shaking like a leaf, and Gwen watched as Owen put a hand on her shoulder and she broke down, turning into him and sobbing. 

They drove back to Cardiff in silence. Ianto’s broken ribbed wheezing was the only sound other than the sounds of the cars around them. About halfway through the drive, Jack put a hand on Ianto’s knee, and Ianto just covered it with his own. 

Gwen’s flat was the first stop, and she climbed out without a goodbye, only nodding once when Owen shouted at her to make sure she changed the gauze and when Jack told her to take tomorrow off. 

She got up to her flat and froze outside the door. 

Rhys. Rhys would worry about her and ask questions that she couldn’t answer- except she could, she realized with a start. There were no aliens, just humans. Horrible, monstrous humans, and in there was  _ Rhys,  _ her human, her darling, beautiful human who had never killed anyone and suddenly tears filled Gwen’s eyes, and she ran inside, finding Rhys half asleep on the couch.

Rhys blinked at her “Oi, I thought you weren’t getting back till- Hey, hey what’s wrong?”

Gwen bit her lip, shaking her head as she started to  _ sob.  _ Dai, Rhys’ welsh corgi daemon, ran over and started nuzzling her legs worriedly, herding her towards the couch so she could collapse onto it and into Rhys’ arms. 

She slowly managed to choke out the basics of it- cannibals, her friends hurt, innocent people killed for no good reason, and Rhys held her close until long after the shaking stopped. 

* * *

Owen got out at Tosh’s house, quietly saying he would walk home after he made sure she was okay, and Jack started driving towards Ianto’s flat by silent agreement. The hub was still set to automatically alert him of any major rift happenings, it could manage without him for one night. 

Jack slowly helped Ianto as he climbed the four flight walk up to his floor, and Emma rode on Navir’s back in silence. The arrived at apartment 4C, and Ianto finally whispered “stay the night?”

Jack nodded, following Ianto into the house and removing his shoes. He turned to the kitchen, figuring he could make them a drink or something, but Ianto grabbed his sleeve and tugged him towards the bedroom. 

Jack blinked at him, letting himself be pulled until finally, he stopped near the doorway of Ianto’s bedroom. “Ianto, I don’t think this is a good-”

Ianto turned, and stepped forward, burying his face in Jack’s shoulder and clutching at his shirt.  _ “Please,”  _ Ianto whispered brokenly. “Please, I miss you so much, I miss _ us,  _ I miss having you here, I  _ need  _ this, need you so  _ much,  _ Jack…”

Jack kissed his head gently. “Your concussed, not thinking straight-”

“I’ve not  _ stopped  _ thinking about it for  _ weeks,  _ Jack,  _ please” _

Jack stepped back enough to tilt Ianto’s head up and kiss him. He muttered, “What about your boy in a bar?”

Ianto shook his head “I don’t- I’m sorry about that, I am, we never talked about it-”

“Don’t do it again?” Jack asked, remembering the hurt from earlier, “Please?”

Ianto nodded, kissing him again and again and again…

Something changed that night, although neither could say what. Jack made love to him slow and gentle, and Ianto cried himself to sleep. 

They didn’t let each other go for a long time.

* * *

It took a few weeks for everyone to recover, but things were… good. Surprisingly good. Gwen came into work each day, sassed Owen and started thanking Ianto for her coffee in welsh, which was surprisingly delightful. Owen seemed… lighter, somehow, and if Ianto didn’t know better he’d say they were sleeping together. 

He and Tosh started going on lunch dates, where they gossiped about star trek, Owen, and Jack. Ianto idly asked her if she could help him keep up his Japanese- he’d started learning it before canary wharf, and now was as good a time as any to pick it up again. 

Maybe it was just the relief of being alive, but everyone was closer, everything was  _ better.  _ Jack started spending most nights at Ianto’s again, and one night he chuckled and said, “Maybe my team building activities didn’t go so badly after all.”

Ianto threw a pillow at him, then kissed him to shut him up. It was good. 

* * *

Ever since the Brecons, Owen had noticed Tosh  _ looking  _ at him. 

Really looking, in a way he hadn’t experienced in a long time.  _ Looking  _ looking. 

And Owen had begun to realize… he looked at Tosh too. 

She was so beautiful all the time. And smart and funny and way  _ way  _ too good for a bastard like him. And yet she looked at… she  _ liked  _ him.  _ Him!  _ It was the best thing to happen to him in  _ years,  _ and honestly, if he could just  _ get over himself… _

But of course, he couldn’t. And it was surprisingly painful when Tosh stopped looking.

* * *

The fact that Mary had no daemon was something Tosh tried very hard to not bring up. It should have been a huge red flag, but Tosh chose to believe it was just… something she didn’t want to talk about. She wanted to believe Mary was normal. 

Because she clearly didn’t have any other options. 

Just when she thought something would happen with Owen, just when she thought something was  _ changing,  _ Mary gave her the stupid necklace and Owen had thought all those  _ horrid  _ things. 

Comments on her looks, on how she talked, on what she said- she didn’t realize he found her so  _ annoying.  _

Well, screw Owen. She had Mary. She saved a little boy and his mother. She’s letting Mary into the Hub now, and Mary’s an alien and why oh why can  _ nothing  _ in her life just go  _ right?  _

Mary pulled a knife, and Kya flew at her, only for Mary to swing the knife around and- 

Tosh felt the pain shoot down her back as the knife ripped through Kya’s wing and she screamed, falling to her knees. Kya hit the ground face first and she  _ stayed there.  _ Mary grabbed Tosh by the hair, dragging her up so Mary could press the knife to her throat. 

Tosh could hear the panicked thoughts of her teammates.  _ “Not tosh, not tosh,-“”was a copper I know hostage negoti-“”not tosh not toshnottosh””-god what do I do what do I do I can’t do anything I’m useless I’m bloody useless-“”not tosh not tosh!!”  _

(Later, she would realize Owen’s only thought was  _ not tosh,  _ and she would almost cry.) 

Then Jack’s thoughts cut through the others, and he told her what to do, like the leader he was. She loved Jack, Jack who saved her again and again. Jack who sent Mary to the sun for her. 

Tosh knelt on the ground and clutched Kya close, crying. It was over. 

A cold hand rested on her shoulder, and she looked up at Owen. A million things ran through her head, but what came out of her mouth was: “how can you think such horrible things about me?”

Owen blinked, then frowned. “What?”

“All your thoughts are about how stuffy I look, how annoying I sound, how-“

“That’s not what I think.” Owen took the necklace off of her and sat down, eyes softer than he’d ever seen. “Tosh, I’m a prat. Self-proclaimed. But if you could hear what I think about you, all you’d hear is how amazing I think you are, and how you deserve so much better than me, or this shit job, or any of it. all day, every day.” 

And then he finally kissed her. And it, somehow, was everything she imagined.

* * *

With the necklace destroyed and Tosh and Owen finally dating, Gwen-  _ stupidly-  _ thought that maybe, just  _ maybe  _ things would calm down a bit. Just for a little while. Of course, she was wrong. 

Torchwood picked up a murder mystery, and Gwen had to admit, the thrill of solving a mystery, collecting evidence and figuring out whodunit had been sorely missing since she left the Cardiff PD. 

Of course, the answer to the whodunit was “brainwashed man” and “dead lady” so perhaps her nostalgia was a little premature. 

“We’re not using the glove,” Jack insisted as he stabbed at his Chinese food. “It’s too dangerous, Gwen.”

“We have a tool that we can use to help stop a murderer!” 

“The murderer is already in custody,” Owen sighed. Gwen glared at him. “We don’t know who else Suzie brainwashed. We have a responsibility to the public to use every tool at our disposal to save lives!” 

“Gwen, listen to me. Read my lips. We are not! Using! The glove! End of discussion!”

* * *

Of  _ course,  _ they ended up using the damn glove. And then Max managed to lock them in the HUB, and Jack had to call Kathy Swanson and… 

_ “Just once more, please?”  _

Jack sighed, looking heavenward for help. Ianto patted Jack’s hip from where he was sitting at his desk. Jack ran a hand down his face. “We are  _ locked  _ in our own  base.”

The number of people laughing had grown. Was he on speakerphone or something? Of course in the end, it was his wonderful, brilliant Tosh who figured out how to open the doors. 

In the end, they got Gwen home safe- although Jack put her on suspension, which she took without argument. And then, Jack went looking for Ianto. 

He found his… were they boyfriends at this point? He found Ianto standing over Suzie’s drawer, filling out paperwork. 

“You okay?” Ianto asked, and Jack sighed. “Someday, we’re gonna run out of space.” 

Ianto carefully didn’t mention the off-site cryogenic facilities or the lower levels. In fact, he just shrugged and said: “You know, I still have that stopwatch.” 

Jack frowned “yeah?”

Ianto hummed casually. “Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch.” 

_ Oh.  _

Suddenly Jack felt like he couldn’t breathe. Ianto was just… perfect. How did he always know exactly what Jack needed? 

“Will you go to dinner with me?” Jack blurted out, and Ianto blinked. “Like a date?” 

Jack gulped, nodding. And Ianto…  _ beamed  _ at him. “Yeah, Jack. I’d love that.” 

Jack felt  _ warm.  _ “Meet you upstairs in ten minutes? We’ll bow out early, let tosh and Owen make up for the dates we covered for them.” 

“That’s ten minutes,” Ianto clicked the button on his stopwatch, “and counting.” 

* * *

Gwen came back to work bearing apology doughnuts, and the next few weeks consist of ghosts and weevils, mostly. 

The rift spike comes around lunch, and they meet Diane, with her falcon proud upon her shoulder, Emma with her turtle daemon, and John with his loyal and protective Doberman. 

(Jack couldn’t help but notice the way that Emma didn’t go near him, and the way that Ianto flinched whenever John’s Doberman bared its teeth.)

Owen seemed to think he could help Diane, could tie her to the ground despite already being in a relationship. Gwen seemed to think she was Emma’s mother, and-

It was Jack and Ianto’s first Christmas, and Jack stumbled into Ianto’s flat smelling like exhaust fumes. Ianto supposed he could figure out what happened to John. 

He took Jack's arm and led him into the bathroom, gesturing for Navir to follow. When he didn’t, Emma started nudging him, herding him silently in. His shower really wasn’t large enough for both Jack and Navir, but he made it work. Ianto rolled up his sleeves and started stripping Jack down. His work was silent, mechanical but soothing. He waited for Jack to make the first move.

Ianto had the water heating up when Jack said “you’re gonna need a new car.” 

Ianto tried to hold back his wince- he loved his Audi, but he supposed he didn’t want to drive a car someone had killed themselves in. 

“Torchwood-  _ I’ll  _ pay for it,” Jack said, looking down. “Sorry.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” Ianto said, calmly shuffling Jack and Navir into the shower. “I can deal with it-“ 

“Don’t be crazy, Ianto.” Jack replied with a scowl, “I’ll cover it. I have enough saved up after so long…” 

Jack trailed off, looking uncomfortable again, and Ianto sighed. “Did you know my dad’s daemon was a Doberman?” 

Jack blinked, shaking his head. Ianto nodded once. “Looked just like John’s. Mean old bastard.” 

Jack looked at the floor “I guess John wasn’t much better, was he?” 

“I dunno,” Ianto said, tilting Jack’s head up. “Was he?” 

Maybe it was the validation of Jack’s feelings for the old man, or maybe they weren’t talking about John at all, but that question did it. Jack started to cry into Ianto’s shoulder, and Ianto didn’t even care that his shirt was getting wet or his nice Christmas dinner was getting cold. Jack needed him as much as he needed Jack. Ianto held him until his aftershocks stopped.

* * *

Owen decided that Diane Holmes was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

He loved Tosh, it was  _ scary  _ how much he loved Tosh, but Tosh understood that this time of year was hard for him- it was only a month or so after Katie’s anniversary, and Owen was in his first serious relationship since the woman he was going to  _ marry.  _ And Diane, oh, ferocious and independent Diane reminded him  _ so much  _ of Katie, it  _ hurt.  _ Tosh was special in her own way, but Diane and Katie were strong and opinionated and beautiful and Owen couldn’t handle losing them both. 

So. 

Weevil fight club. 

Mark Lynch was full of shit, really.  _ The need to feel, to let it out.  _ Shut up and get some therapy, god. Owen hated him (and was maybe just a little attracted to him) but more than anything, he wanted to go home. Sure he was sad about Diane, that was what made him take this assignment, so he could clear his head and maybe save some weevil lives, but he wasn’t trying to  _ die,  _ especially not by Weevil.

If only he could convince Tosh of that. 

She was pacing back and forth across his hospital room, mumbling angrily to herself. She’d been at it for so long that Owen had started counting the clip-clop of her heels on the floor. 24 steps one way, 24 steps back. 

“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me,” Tosh finally said, seething with anger. “I mean, god, Owen, did you think I wouldn’t care?”

“Tosh, babe, for the last time, I wasn’t trying to die,” Owen said, feeling tired of repeating himself. Layla was curled up next to his leg, looking miserable. Owen reaches down to run his thumb over her head soothingly, and Tosh watched him, a weary look in her eyes. 

“I can’t lose anyone else, Owen.” Tosh said, “I can’t have anyone else hurt me like this. I  _ can’t.”  _

“I know,” Owen reached for her, and Tosh came over to take his hand. Kya flew off her shoulder and settled in his lap, warm and soft. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Owen promised. And he really meant it. 

* * *

So obviously, everything went to shit.

* * *

Later, Jack wouldn’t be able to remember abbadon clearly. All he remembered was that it hurt.

Later, he’d find out that after Rhys came back Gwen had rushed home, and Tosh and Owen had left, leaving Ianto alone in the hub with his body. Later, he’d learn that Ianto had cried all night and that Emma hadn’t left his side.

He woke up to Emma licking his face, in fact. And as he blinked open his eyes she started barking happily, hopping off his chest to watch Navir reform. Some clothes were hanging on a hook next to the entryway, and Jack realized he was in the morgue. 

“How long was I dead?” Jack asked. Sure, the others hadn’t known, but Ianto  _ knew  _ Jack came back, so why was he in… 

“Three days,” Emma said with a whine and oh, that was why. Ianto had given up hope. 

Jack dressed quickly, noting that his boots and greatcoat were missing. He padded up to the main hub in his socks. Kya saw him first, and Toshiko was the first one to get to him while Gwen shrieked excitedly. 

Ianto didn’t come to him, just stared at him with wide eyes. Jack gently moved Tosh out of the way, approaching Ianto like he was a spooked horse. 

Ianto, being Ianto, awkwardly held out a hand, and Jack couldn’t help himself- he dragged Ianto into a tight hug, only releasing him to cup Ianto’s face and kiss him. Ianto’s hands rested on his elbows, and they rocked slowly in place. 

He finally pulls away to grin at Ianto, noticing Owen standing there, clutching Layla like a security blanket and  _ god, _ Jack loves his team so much-

Which is why what he does next is, admittedly, dickish. Extremely so. 

It’s like a pavlovian response. The team goes out to get coffee, Jack stays behind. The TARDIS whirrs and oh, Jack can’t help it, he jumps from his seat- only to freeze. 

“What are you doing?” Navir asks, staring at him. “Let’s  _ go,  _ he won’t stay forever.”

“But the team-” Jack never realized he’d feel so conflicted about leaving, and even Navir flinches, probably thinking of Emma. 

They’re quiet for a second, and then Navir says “We’re doing this for  _ them.  _ For Ianto and Emma.”  “I don’t want to outlive them,” Jack whispers, then he grabs his coat and his hand in a jar, and he  _ runs.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: a paraoxical year


	4. Interlude; Explaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philosophy at the end of the world, plus torture and surprise emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a day late for no good reason, sorry. The more pressing matter is that Next week's chapter and the two chapters after that aren't done. I'll try my best, but there might not be an update next week. 
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: as the chapter description mentions there's some fairly graphic torture near the end of this chapter. Be careful kids.
> 
> Dedicated to Chris Chibnall, who brought back our BOY

Traveling with the doctor is nothing like what Navir and Jack remember. 

Gone are the inside jokes and casual flirting, this new doctor is hyperactive and spiteful and just a little mean, and Jack… Jack wishes he could hate him, but every now and then there will be this clever look in his eye, and Jack will see the big-eared man with the long fingers who came shooting into his life and changing his world. 

Still. Doctor or no, the end of the universe  _ sucks.  _

Jack hopes and prays he doesn’t  _ actually  _ live this long because this is downright depressing. He’s seen human suffering, he’s seen human hope, and right here at the end of everything, they balance each other out under a dark sky. 

Jack misses Cardiff. He never thought he’d get attached to the Welsh capital, but he misses the bay and the rooftops and he misses his  _ team.  _ He sees a lot of Tosh in Doctor Yana, and a lot of Gwen in Chantho. Martha Jones has just enough sarcasm and wit to remind him of Owen- and the only one Jack cannot seem to find is Ianto Jones. 

Jack never realized how unique Ianto’s smile was until he was without it, and until he realized that these tragedy hardened people didn’t have the touch of ever-present softness that Ianto had. He misses it. He misses him, and Emma, and the flat and the coffee and the hugs and the sex… 

He misses having a companion, the one thing of which the doctor seems to have an endless supply. He decides then and there- after this adventure, he wants to go  _ home.  _

Of course,  _ of course,  _ nothing is that simple.

  
  


* * *

Fun fact about time lords- their TARDISes are their daemons. 

Jack did not know this. 

He meets the master, and he knows it now.

That kind of madness can only be found in someone separated from their daemon forever. 

* * *

Three weeks into his captivity, and the Master has decided that today he will whip Navir to death while Jack watches. 

Nothing,  _ nothing  _ hurts more than seeing his partner and soul in chains and a muzzle, and Jack hates the way he can feel the burning crack of the whip. Navir doesn’t scream, doesn’t let anyone hear him scream, and Jack loves him for it. Just as the master is really getting into it, a guard knocks. 

The master whips around, snarling. “I said no interruptions!” 

“Sir, this is of high importance!” The guard stutters out, handing the master the report and scurrying away like the UNIT coward he is. The master reads the report and his face grows cold and furious in a way Jack is beginning to hate. 

And then he smirks, and turns to Jack. “Guess what freak, today’s your lucky day! You have suddenly gained  _ value.  _ So!” 

He pulls out a knife and presses it against Jack’s jugular. “If you tell me where your little friends would be hiding, I won't kill you today. Maybe I’ll even let you out of those chains.” 

_ His little friends.  _

Jack’s team was  _ alive,  _ Ianto was  _ alive  _ and breathing somewhere out in the hell of the world. 

And suddenly, Jack feels positively giddy. He grins widely and starts laughing. They were alive alive alive  _ alive- _

“I have no idea where they are,” Jack manages between peals of laughter, “but if I did, I-  _ ha-  _ I would never fucking tell  _ you.”  _

The master stabs him in the chest, and Jack goes out still laughing. 

* * *

He refuses to let go of the giddy joy he felt that day, even as the master tries to twist it into despair. Even when he watches the japan bombings and was presented with pictures of his beautiful Toshiko’s corpse. Even when the master left Gwen’s head in the boiler room for weeks, even when he watches Owen be soaked in acid right in front of him. 

It was possible that Jack has gone slightly mad. 

He can’t stop hoping, he won’t stop hoping, if he stops hoping he would focus on the way the master was killing him daily, on the fact that the doctor was so silent. On the fact that there was only one person left for the master to hurt. 

* * *

Jack has lost count of the days, lost count of the deaths, lost count of  _ everything  _ the day the Master finally drags Ianto into the boiler room. He’s gagged, and his feet have been whipped and his hair is long, but it’s  _ Ianto,  _ stubborn and defiant and no doubt spitting welsh curse words through the rag in his mouth. Emma is nowhere to be found. 

Jack fights against his bonds for the first time in months. He has to get to Ianto, needs to get to him, so much so that he doesn’t care when the master laughs and says to let him go, he doesn’t go for the guards, or for the master. Jack’s arms are freed for the first time in so long and the only thing he can do is wrap his arms around Ianto and hold him tight. 

Jack goes for the gag with shaky hands, whispering “it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m right here, it’s all gonna be okay-“

The master shoots him in the head, he hears Ianto scream as he dies.

* * *

He comes back in his chains again, with Ianto laying on the floor next to him, curled up with his face in Navir’s shoulder. His leg is broken, and his face is bloody when he looks up at Jack. 

“You’re not chained up?” Jack asks, and Ianto gestures to his leg tiredly. “Can’t go anywhere. This is a stupid question but are you alright?”

Jack laughs brokenly and says “yeah, don’t you recognize BDSM when you see it?” 

“Jack,” Ianto chastises, but he’s smiling. Then his expression goes serious. “I lost the others, he broadcasted their deaths. He picked me up outside of Edinburgh. I was trying to get to Sweden- that was the last place the nightingale was sighted-“ 

“You know Martha,” Jack interrupts with a smile, and Ianto shrugs and jack notices the wheeze in his breathing. “We’ve met up a few times. Anyway, they grabbed me and took Emma-“

Navir let out a whine at that. He didn’t talk much these days, mainly because the master kept a muzzle on him at all times. Ianto gave him a scratch behind his ears, and Jack can’t help but shudder at the phantom feeling of the first gentle touch he’d had since… since the  _ ritz.  _ Since he danced with Captain Jack Harkness. 

“How are you, Ianto?” Jack asks, and Ianto shrugs. “All the better for seeing you, sir.” 

Jack laughs, and oh, if it could just stay like this he’d survive this hell just fine. 

* * *

Three days pass, and there has been no food brought to them. 

One of the boilers condensates relatively clean water. Ianto’s taken to crawling under it and holding his tongue out and waiting for the water to drip onto it. He very carefully sets up a spot for the bathroom somewhere out of Jack’s line of sight, and they notably do not talk about it. 

On the third day, just as Ianto’s ribs are really starting to show, they bring in Emma.

Well, a table with Emma strapped onto it. Emma is splayed out like a starfish, muzzle on. For the first time in three days, Ianto tries to clamber to his feet on instinct, only to yelp in pain from his leg and go crashing back to the ground. Navir charges at one of the guards, only to get a cattle prod to the eye, and Jack shrieks at the sudden, blinding pain. 

“You know,” the master says loudly, cutting through all the other noise. “I’ve always been fascinated by daemons. Was somewhat of an expert as to their biology. Of course, now I don’t know how much I remember.”

He pulls out a scalpel, and his grin is feral as he says “let’s find out, shall we?” 

Jack hangs their, limp and  _ horrified,  _ as the master cuts straight down Emma’s back, peels back flesh and fur, and starts sawing through ribs. Ianto screams and screams and  _ screams. _

The master manages to keep Emma alive for what feels like  _ hours  _ as he dissects her tiny body, until long after Ianto’s mouth is bloody from screaming. And, Jack notes with great heartbreak, for the first time in Jack’s long, long memory, Navir is crying. 

The master finally puts down the scalpel, and he looks over at Ianto. The screaming had long since stopped, and now all Ianto could do was lay there and  _ twitch.  _

Jack realized belatedly that he’s crying too. 

“He doesn’t look too good,” the master says casually. “Think I should put him out of his misery?”

And oh, this,  _ this  _ was the Master’s final trick. The final nail in Jack’s coffin. He was going to make Jack  _ beg  _ for his lover’s death, and Jack would do it. He would. Because anything,  _ anything  _ was better than watching Ianto lay there and suffer. 

“Please,” Jack sobs.  _ “Please  _ let him die.” 

The master shot Ianto in the head, and then he released Jack from his chains. Jack crawled over, sat down with his back against Navir, pulled Ianto into his lap, and cried himself to sleep. 

* * *

The world is saved only a few days later. Time reversed. 

Jack tries to take heart in the fact that Ianto lasted so long in hell, but he can’t, he  _ can’t.  _ He just wants to go home, more than he ever has before. That’s what he tells the doctor when the doctor starts suggesting they all go to midnight for a spa day after the hell year. 

The Joneses agree with him. He drops them off first, and then the TARDIS lands on the bay, and Jack and Navir walk out and take their first breaths of cool Cardiff air in  _ a year.  _ And for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t care what the doctor thinks of him, he doesn’t care that he isn’t traveling. 

Somewhere in this city, Toshiko Sato was eating lunch with her boyfriend Owen. Gwen Cooper was on the phone with her fiancé Rhys. And somewhere in this beautiful, beautiful city, Ianto Jones was purchasing sandwiches for the team, Emma walking by his side. 

Jack smiles his first genuine smile in recent memory, and he turns his face towards the sun and turns his sails to  _ home.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ???: season two! Dates and Brothers and Exes OH MY


	5. Part 3: Loving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack returns and brings with him secrets and feelings. Plus things happen with Owen, Gwen makes some tough choices, and Daemons go through things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IN MY DEFENSE THERES A NATIONAL PANDEMIC. THAT'S WHY I HAVEN'T POSTED ANYTHING.
> 
> To everyone thinking I won't finish this- HA not only is this chapter done the next chapter is finished and the last chapter is about half way done. We're now back to our Monday posting schedule just in time for me to start tech school.
> 
> Happy Pride, Black Lives Matter, dedicated to Marsha P. Johnson.

Blowfish had quickly become the bane of Owen’s existence. 

Every time he tried to take Tosh on a date, it was always a god damn  _ blowfish.  _ Never a weevil, interestingly enough. Probably because Ianto seemed to have an affinity for weevils and a lot of very understandable  _ anger  _ to get out of his system. 

Sometimes, Owen watched him work and wondered how in god's name he’d thought Ianto  _ slept  _ his way into his job. 

Anyway, blowfish. 

Blowfish were exactly what they sounded like- human shellfish, with gills and everything. They were gangsters, every one of them, and they were, unfortunately, sentient, which meant they needed to take them down together. Tonight’s culprit was particularly nasty, and they’d been tracking him for three days while he was on some sort of bender. 

No, seriously. There was enough cocaine in this alien’s blood to kill eight people. 

They finally corner him in a house outside of Cardiff, with his knife to a girl’s throat. Emma and Seraphine were snarling at him, and Ianto had his gun pointed but Owen knew Ianto hadn’t slept in a few days, so his hand was shaky and the blowfish was spitting venom-

So when a perfectly circular bullet hole appeared in the blowfish’s forehead, Owen was confused. 

And then  _ Jack motherfucking Harkness  _ stepped out of the shadows with a wide grin and a “did’ ya miss me?” and it took everything Owen had not to tackle him to the ground. But by far the most amusing part of the whole thing is the way Navir padded into the room and made a B-line for Emma, only for her to snap her jaws at his nose and send him reeling. 

Ianto turned, grabbed the blowfish in a fireman’s hold, and breezed past Jack with Emma on his heels, and  _ that’s  _ when Owen realizes he won’t have to punch Jack, Ianto will do it for him. 

* * *

In fairness, Jack expected to be back a few days after the year, not  _ three months.  _

If he ever saw the doctor again, he’d rip his ears off for his terrible driving. Everyone was pissed at him,  _ Ianto  _ was pissed at him and Jack didn’t even have anything to show for it. He wasn’t mortal, he was  _ wrong,  _ in fact, and now he had to live with the knowledge of what it would be like when Ianto was cold and dead. 

He had to be with Ianto, he had to be, for as long as he had. He knew what it was like to exist in a world without Ianto, and he  _ needed  _ him. He needed Ianto. 

But first, there was a dead body, and his wrist strap beeped and-

_ Oh hell no.  _

“John Hart” was apparently what Luc was calling himself, with Viana at his side. Keroxian Foxes were a bit like cats. Cats with fangs like a cobra and thick purple manes like lions. Viana had always been cruel and teasing, and when Jack’s team burst into the bar and Viana jumped on Emma Jack had to physically restrain Navir from going for her. 

“Aw, what’s the matter, Navi? Is this one your chew toy?” Viana teased, and Emma growled, twisting and biting down on Viana’s tail hard. Viana shrieked and John chuckled darkly. “Oh, the little daemon has teeth!”

“Don’t you  _ ever  _ touch her again.” Navir snarled, and John threw his head back and laughed. 

“Oh, and what are you gonna do? Kill me, Navi?” John asked, and Jack stepped between them. 

“That’s enough,” he said, glaring, “what do you want?” 

In the end, John’s little mishap almost got them all killed. And as John went into the rift, he smirked and said “oh, I found Grey.” 

And Jack was certain he’d have a heart attack on the spot. 

* * *

They were in the middle of stopping a mad man when Jack asked him out on a date. 

They’d been on “dates” before- dinner followed by sex, they never actually called them dates. There was an eagerness in Jack’s tone when he offered and oh, Ianto  _ wanted  _ it.

“As long as it’s not in an office.” Was what he came up with and seriously, what was he  _ thinking. _

The moment Jack left (was he grinning as he left?) Emma turned on him. “What are you doing?! He  _ left  _ us!” 

“And now he’s back,” Ianto argued. “Emma, c’mon, you know you missed them.” 

Emma pouted, and just as she was about to retort, Viana hopped off a desk and landed on her, and John Hart was there, and then Ianto had to save everyone, so the point was forgotten. 

Later, after all was said and done, Jack bought them all rooms at the St. David hotel. Ianto didn’t even have time to take a shower before the knock came. 

He opened the door with a sigh, watching Jack rock back and forth on his feet, looking more rigid and terrified than Ianto had ever seen him.

Ianto sighed again, feeling pity. “Would you like to come- ow, Emma!” 

He glared down at his daemon, who had just bitten him on the ankle. She glared back up at him. “Can I talk to you?  _ Now.” _

Ianto sighed and looked back at Jack, who looked like he would cry if he didn’t get a hug “One moment please, don’t go anywhere.”

He closed the door, and Emma hissed at him “I don’t  _ wanna  _ forgive them!” 

“I know you don’t, but I do!” 

“Ianto-“

“Look it’s not even forgiveness, it’s comfort. Look at them Emma-“ for emphasis, he opened the door, and gestured broadly at Navir and Jack. “C’mon, tell me we shouldn’t help them.” 

Emma grumbled, and Jack blinked. “Look, we can leave-“

“No,” Emma sighed, “come in.” She shot a glare at Navir “but you keep away from me. Ianto won’t admit it but we’re pissed.” 

Ianto opened his arms, and Jack practically collapsed against him for a hug. Emma and Navir sat in opposite corners while Jack told Ianto about the year. 

* * *

Emma kept up her “no-touch” tirade with Navir right up until Jack got stabbed in the chest and died. 

He woke up to Ianto sitting with Jack’s head in his lap, and Emma staring anxiously at the gold dust that Navir became when Jack died. 

“He’s been taking longer to reform,” Jack explained tiredly. “All the death over the last year, it left scars on him.” 

Ianto shot his daemon a pointed look, and Emma whimpered, ears pulling back. “I just don’t get why you had to go! I thought-  _ we  _ thought you were happy!” 

Ianto winced, but nodded a little at Jack’s questioning look. 

“Hey, I am happy,” Jack protested. “We both are-“ 

Navir reformed, Emma quietly trotted over, laying down next to him. 

Jack sighed. “We are happy. Ianto, Don’t you get it? If the doctor could’ve fixed me, I could spend the rest of my life with you, without worrying about the  _ billions  _ of years I’d outlive you by.” 

Ianto gazed at him, and Jack sighed. “Ianto, I watched you… I want to do this right, for however long I’ve got.”

Ianto leaned forward and kissed him softly, with no intention of heating things up. He pulled away and stood, offering Jack a hand. 

“Date first. I was promised dinner and a movie and it’s time you paid up.”

Jack beamed.

* * *

Tosh’s whirlwind romance with Tommy had been her big thing to look forward to each year. She couldn’t help feeling bad for him- he was a shell shocked soldier, whose daemon was back in the forties waiting for him to return. He’d told them stories about Louis, his loyal golden retriever. He missed him. Kya spent each year nuzzled up against Tommy, and Tosh was loathe to break the cycle now. 

She chewed fiercely on her lip as she stared at her calendar, at the circled date. She jumped a little when cool scales brushed against her ankle, still unused to Layla being underfoot in her home. She looked down and gave the snake a pat on the head as Layla nuzzled her leg. 

She heard Owen stumble out of the bedroom, wearing only his boxers and yawning loudly. She looked up, and her despair must’ve shown on her face, because Owen sighed and said “its Tommy, isn’t it?”

“He’s going to be so confused when he wakes up. For him a year ago was yesterday.” She looked down again, feeling like the scum of the earth. 

Owen sighed her name, then came over and pressed a kiss to her head. 

“You do realize my ego’s big enough to let you go for one day, right?”

Tosh blinked up at him, and Owen grinned at her. “I mean, promise not to sleep with him, unless we both sleep with him, which I’d be down for-  _ Tosh!” _

Tosh threw herself off the couch and into his arms, kissing him and wrapping her legs around his waist. Owen laughed as he kissed her, clutching her thighs. 

She pulled back a bit, smiling. “I love you, Owen.”

Owen flushed up to his ears, mumbling a “yeah yeah, love you too babe.”

(and if they  _ did  _ sleep with Tommy, that was their business.)

* * *

“Would you go back to your time, if you could?”

Jack wondered how their conversation about Tommy had suddenly become a conversation about him, but he and Ianto were masters at saying one thing and meaning another. 

“Why, would you miss me?”  _ I’m sorry I left _

“Yep.”  _ So much, you don’t even know. _

“Being here… I’ve seen things I never would’ve seen. Loved people I never would’ve loved if I’d just… stayed put.”  _ I’m not going anywhere. _

Jack raised his head to look at Ianto. He heard Emma let out a whine and felt Navir nuzzle her. 

“I wouldn’t change that for the  _ world.” _

They were gonna be just fine.

* * *

Gwen couldn’t believe that Dai and Rhys were here, at the  _ hub.  _ Seraphine hadn’t moved an inch away from the corgi, snarling at anyone who dared to get close to them. And Dai, of course, just kept wiggling that cute little corgi butt and acting all  _ excited  _ and Gwen wanted to pet him but dammit she was  _ mad at them for forcing their way into this.  _

“We are  _ not  _ letting him come with us!” She snapped again, and Rhys rubbed his temples in that way he did when he was frustrated. 

“I already have an in with these guys, Gwen,” Rhys said. “Look, I don’t even need to leave the truck. I get you lot in, I leave, you do your thing.”

“You’re still going into a criminal lair, full of crazy and very dangerous people!” Gwen hissed, seething. “It’s too dangerous!”

Rhys scoffed. “You’re not my bloody mother, and you’d be going there too!”

“I’m  _ trained  _ to do this, Rhys!”

“You’re trained to be a copper, not fight bloody  _ aliens!”  _ Rhys snapped, and Owen took a long sip of his coffee, sighing “Oh joy, a domestic.”

_ “Shut it!”  _ Gwen and Rhys shouted in unison, and Navir let out a loud growl, silencing them both. 

“That’s enough,” Jack said, rising to his feet and crossing his arms. “Gwen, Rhys is coming, get used to it. Rhys, if you fuck this up I’ll kill you myself. I don’t want to hear another peep about the issue from either of you.”

* * *

In the end, Rhys didn’t fuck it up, things were just fucked up from the start. 

Emma almost got shot. Jack couldn’t quite wrap his head around that one. If that gun hadn’t been empty, Emma would’ve dusted away and Ianto would’ve been existing without a daemon and Jack would’ve actually died if he had to watch that happen again. 

Rhys actually  _ did  _ get shot, as Gwen was happy enough to tell everyone. Loudly. With that passion that made her such a great agent suddenly being turned on them and-

“You all think the world is cold and dead, but I’m not! Because I have  _ him!” _

Her sentiment echoed around the hub to dead silence. Gwen went an odd shade as she processed what she just said. Seraphine whimpered loudly and Gwen said “I’m sor-”

_ “Don’t.”  _ Owen hissed, turning to storm off with Layla hissing after him. Tosh stepped forward, pain in her eyes but gesturing reassuringly. “Just give him some time, Gwen, He’ll be fine, it’s fine-”

“It’s not,” Gwen looked miserable now, like the fear of the day was just catching up to her. “It’s not, I shouldn’t have said that.” 

“You shouldn’t have,” Navir agreed in a murderous tone, but Jack stepped forward and said “look, Gwen, why don’t you take the weekend. Let everyone cool off and really consider what you want-”

“No.” Ianto interrupted, speaking for the first time. “No. I almost watched my daemon get shot today, because  _ someone _ couldn’t keep still and trust me to do my _ job.”  _

He tossed an irritated glare at Gwen, who had the good grace to look ashamed. Then Ianto sighed. “Look, I’ll forgive you in my own time, but you don’t get to take a weekend off every time you fuck up. And it's understandable that you have- you’ve still only been with torchwood for a year- but at some point you gotta start working through the bad shit.” 

Emma rubbed her head against his ankle, and Ianto sighed again. “Just- if it's Rhys, bring him here. He can sit on the couch and rest his arm. Go home and be back bright and early tomorrow.”

She nodded once, then left. Ianto’s shoulders slumped immediately, and Jack went over to rest a hand on the back of Ianto’s neck. Ianto leaned into him and Jack embraced him fully, kissing his temple. Ianto started to shake, but no tears came, there was no indication of anything until Emma let out a loud whimper, darting forward to bury herself in Navir’s fur. 

“Fuck,” Ianto whispered, finally letting it all out,  _ “Fuck.” _

“Yeah,” Jack sighed, holding him tight. “It's okay, we’re all okay. Everything is okay now.”

* * *

Something was very very wrong. Something must be very very wrong because Gwen had forgotten  _ Rhys.  _ Seraphine had forgotten Dai and the fear of it all was making Ianto’s head hurt. 

Something was going around wiping memories. Owen was stumped- of course, he always was. He second-guessed himself far too much, was anxious to the point of terror- to say nothing of his absurd  _ (and distracting) _ crush on Tosh. 

The only person who seemed to be acting calm and rational about the whole thing was Adam- and thank  _ god _ he was, because goodness knows Ianto needed at least one person other than him to be calm. 

Jack had been… distant, lately. The last time Ianto could remember them doing anything couple like was after the alien whale, when Jack had held him while he cried. But that was almost a month ago, and Ianto  _ hated  _ it. He hated that they were back to being… separated. 

His life was better when he and Jack were together, it was as simple as that. 

Sighing, he sat back at his desk, rubbing his temples and reaching down to scratch Emma behind the ears. He’d promised Tosh that he would check his diary for any odd occurrences. 

He opened the bottom drawer of his desk, removing the spare office supplies he kept in there and then the false bottom. 

He started flipping through it… and frowned. That couldn’t be right. 

A few minutes passed, and he stood, frown deepening as he switched from skimming to reading intently. Why was there no mention of Adam? Not even  _ once.  _

He walked upstairs as he read, finding the Hub empty and ready to be locked up for the night. He had to tell Jack about this. Something wasn’t right. 

Why couldn’t he remember that date with Jack? Why were there comments about Owen that made no sense? And where was  _ Adam? _

“Ianto?” 

Ianto’s head snapped up as he stared at Adam, Brick sitting on his shoulder. 

Ianto gulped. How had he never noticed that Adam’s daemon was a black widow before? 

“Something wrong, mate?”

“My diary,” Ianto swallowed, “you’re… you’re not in it. Why would everyone else be in it, except you? If you’ve been here so long.”

Adam’s eyes darkened, and Ianto wanted to run- but Brick sprung off Adam’s shoulder, landed square on Emma’s back. Ianto opened his mouth to cry out, but Adam grabbed him and all he could do was 

_ Remember this _

* * *

Jack couldn’t stand the way Grey kept appearing everywhere he looked. Couldn’t stand that by his side was little Talmika, not even settled yet. He couldn’t stand the big soulful eyes or those perfect curls, couldn’t stand how much he missed his brother. 

Coming back to the Hub after a hectic day was almost a relief. It was quiet, the lights were out, and even Navir was wiped. He wanted a stiff drink and his bed… although he had a more comfortable bed at- 

“Jack.”

Jack jumped for a moment, then sighed, chuckling as he recognized those beloved Welsh vowels. “Ianto, just who I wanted to-“

And then Navir let out a frightened noise, and Jack froze, because at Ianto’s feet was a frankly huge black greyhound, with cold, calculating eyes and a mouth that looked like it was sneering. 

_ “Emma?”  _ Navir whispered in horror, and oh, something was very wrong. 

“You have to lock us up, Jack.” Ianto said, sounding close to tears and breaking Jack’s heart. “I’ve killed three girls.”

“Ianto, you could never raise a hand to a human unless they had severely pissed you off, much less kill a woman.” Jack told him, becoming more frightened by the second, “now stop messing around, where’s Emma?”

“Right here,” the greyhound said, rising to her full height and… there was no better word for it,  _ stalking  _ forward. Ianto sprang to his feet and starting snapping his head back and forth, terror plastered across his face. 

“You have to lock me up,” he said again, “it’s not safe, lock me up before I hurt any of you!” Ianto started to run past, but Navir headed him off, and Jack grabbed his arm. “Enough,  _ enough,  _ Ianto, come here dammit-“ 

He dragged Ianto into his arms, holding him tightly, as if sheer force of will could keep Ianto’s scattering pieces from breaking apart. 

“I’m a monster,” Ianto whispered, and Jack choked back a sob. Something had hurt Ianto, and Jack was going to make whatever it was  _ pay. _

Navir didn’t let Emma close to him, even when she tilted her head and practically  _ purred  _ “Navi? What’s wrong?”

For the first time in almost two years, Navir grit his teeth and growled “Don’t call me Navi. Office,  _ now.” _

Jack led Ianto to the chair across from the desk, and went to fetch the lie detector while Navir stayed with Ianto and Emma. 

Something was very,  _ very  _ wrong. Jack was going to find it and fix it. He needed Ianto back.  _ His  _ Ianto.

* * *

Owen remembered what a fierce retcon hangover felt like, which meant that the moment he opened his eyes he knew exactly what was happening. 

He groaned, rubbing at his eyes and frowning when his hands bumped his glasses. Where were his contacts? And was he wearing a sweater vest? 

“Tosh?” He looked to his right, finding her asleep- with tear tracks on her face. Gwen was missing from the table, and Ianto was trembling in his sleep. 

“Owen!”

Owen got up and went out to the main hub to find Gwen standing with her hands on her hips, having a staredown with Navir. 

“We’ve lost two days, and he won’t  _ tell me.”  _ She growled, and Seraphine nudged her leg “Gwen, you don’t wanna know.”

“C’mon Gwen, you know the rules.” Owen muttered tiredly. “They don’t really exist, so they’re not impacted by the retcon. I doubt Navir of all people is gonna tell you what happened.”

He crouched down to let Layla slither onto his arm and curl around his shoulders. Kya was flying around the rafters and Emma was nowhere to be seen. 

“Something bad happened to us, we’re missing two days!” Gwen snapped, and Owen sighed again as he heard Ianto groan. Navir finally snapped his head away from Gwen as Emma darted down the stairs and buried her snout in his side, shaking like a leaf.

“Trust me, Gwen,” Navir said, voice so sad it took the ex-copper aback, “you don’t wanna know.”

* * *

Martha’s daemon was a nightingale, hence the nickname. It was traditionally a daemon for a nurse (like Florence nightingale, get it?) but Martha had taken one look at her settled daemon and decided she wanted to be a doctor. Jack had literally been to the ends of the universe with her and Maia, and he adored her almost as much as he adored Ianto. 

He’d been so excited for her to come to Cardiff, to see his home and properly meet his family, to take her out for dinner so they could gossip about their boyfriends. 

Only now Owen was dead. 

Tosh was sobbing, Ianto was holding her and Kya was flying around med bay, screeching as if looking for Layla. Gwen had shut down, Martha looked guilty even though it wasn’t her fault, it was Jack’s, and no, this was  _ not  _ how Owen freaking Harper was going to die.

* * *

Sometimes, Tosh absolutely hated Jack Harkness.

She hated him the first time she met him, stalking into her prison cell like her savior. She’d stopped hating him as soon as his promises were fulfilled, only to hate him again when she couldn’t see her mother.

She liked him most of the time when she was at torchwood, even loved him in a big brotherly sort of way. She hated him after Mary, hated him when he left. She hated him when they had to send poor Tommy away. But all those times, she managed to forgive him.

But now? Oh, this time she was never forgiving him. She would hate Jack Harkness forever for this. 

Because she was losing Owen.  _ Again. _

Watching him exist without really living was bad enough, watching him try and learn to live without  _ Layla  _ was horrible. Owen was depressed all the time, and he kept pushing Tosh away. The only times she saw him smile was when he scared some poor bastard by  _ electrocuting himself. _

Tosh was just sitting in her flat, head in her hands. Owen was at his place, which was horrible, because a week ago she’d been jokingly packing up boxes to move in with him, and now she was here, and she was crying, and Owen was sad and alone and she  _ couldn’t do anything- _

Someone knocked on her door, and she hurriedly wiped her face on the sleeve of her robe, opening it.

And revealing Owen, face sheepish and a little nervous and  _ beautiful. _

“Can I come in? Fuck, I shouldn’t be asking you that. After how I’ve treated you you should kick me off your porch, and I’d totally-

“Owen, get your skinny arse in here.” Tosh interrupted, and Owen dragged her into a hug and it wasn’t perfect, but they still fit together. 

Tosh took a deep breath, let it out, and for just a little, things were okay. 

* * *

Gwen knew everything was fucked when she woke up on her wedding day to a  _ pregnancy. _

Poor Seraphine was just waddling everywhere, it was depressing. Gwen was hungry and emotional and scared and  _ she was getting married today,  _ oh fuck, oh  _ fuck.  _ Rhys was going to  _ freak.  _

One normal day. Was it too much to ask for one normal day? And worst of all, Owen thought it was the funniest goddamn thing in the world. 

Still, Gwen insisted on going through with it. Fuck what people said, she was marrying Rhys  _ to-fucking-day  _ and her parents could  _ deal with it.  _

And Rhys, bless his heart, tried his best to be supportive. Every time she so much as sniffled Dai ran over and hopped into her lap to cheer her up. He spent the rest of the time pacing around seraphine, trying to play the big bad alpha and scare off anyone who would hurt her. 

She should’ve seen the nostrovite when it didn’t have a daemon, but she was also extremely pregnant at the time so, fuck it. 

* * *

The ghost maker put daemons and people in a coma. The daemons all had odd glows, like they were about to fade to dust at any time. 

Owen spent the entire case staring at them wearily, feeling sick to his non-functioning stomach. 

Kya sat with him whenever she noticed that he missed Layla, but she couldn’t stay with him all the time. 

There were tons of stories about losing a daemon, about the pain of being separated. None of them properly described the… the  _ apathy.  _ The disconnect he felt from everything. 

It was so much worse than being dead. Not eating was awful, not feeling anything was hell. Existing without his soul was like living life through a glass bubble, and no matter how hard he screamed no one heard him. 

After the circus case everyone was shaken, no one more than Ianto. They were all sitting around the hub, drinking (except for Owen) and not really talking about anything. Kya was sitting on Owen’s shoulder, and Emma and Seraphine were by his feet. Navir never really let people touch him, save Ianto or Jack. 

“That boy is lucky his daemon woke up,” Owen commented, and Ianto nodded, eyes still red-rimmed and puffy. “I wouldn’t condemn a boy that young to anything. I mean, I was about his age when…” 

He cut himself off abruptly, taking another swig of his drink. Emma whined. Everyone was staring at him now, and Ianto sighed, finished his bottle, and then leaned forward so his elbows were on his knees and his back was a tense line. 

“My dad wasn’t a master tailor,” Ianto began. “My grandad was, and my father inherited the business shortly before my mam got pregnant with me. They were woefully underprepared for both new business and a new child, and while my father was a fine tailor, he was a shit businessman.” 

Emma shook a little, getting up to hop onto Ianto’s lap and rest her head under his chin. 

“He,” Ianto’s throat flexed as he either swallowed his anxiety or bit back vomit, “I wasn’t supposed to be born. My sister was a rough birth and they were never supposed to have a second child. Between Mam’s health issues in my early years and the expenses of having two kids and my dad’s shitty bookkeeping, the tailor shop went under when I was three.” 

He closed his eyes, buried his nose in his daemon’s fur, and muttered “and my dad made very clear to me that it was all my fault.” 

The girls looked like they were about to cry, and Owen’s bubble of apathy weakened a little. He knew this story, he knew it well. 

“He had this big lazy Doberman as a daemon,” Ianto muttered darkly. “Used to bite the shit out of Emma. One day before she settled we decided that if we found an animal big enough to scare him he would stop. Emma practiced and practiced, formed a giant freaking  _ lion-“  _

Emma whined loudly, and Ianto sighed, shushing her. He undid his tie and opened the top three buttons of his shirt. He pulled it back just enough to reveal the edges of a scar on his shoulder. A bite scar. 

The bubble of apathy cracked a little more.

“All those times he hurt Emma,” Ianto muttered, “we forgot he could hurt me too. I was eight years old- who  _ does that  _ to their fucking  _ kid?” _

The bubble popped, and Owen thought about wine glasses left about, about his mum crying and holding a knife like a lifeline, about a dirty flat and how nothing Owen did made it better. 

“Woke up in the hospital three days later, Emma never got bigger than a poodle again.” 

“He’s in jail, right?” Tosh asked, drunk and furious. Jack muttered darkly “he’s dead. Heart attack. It’s in Ianto’s file. Too good if you ask me-“

“What about the electro?” Gwen asked, “the movies, you said-“

“He did take me,” Ianto sighed, “he also called me into the living room to show me my first bond movie and taught me to tie a tie. Just because he wasn’t a complete monster doesn’t mean I don’t hate him.” 

And Owen- Owen laughed bitterly, and stole Tosh’s glass to raise it in a toast.

“Here’s to shit parents, Ianto,” Owen said, and then took a sip, not caring that he’d have to cough it up later.

* * *

Jonah Bevan didn’t have a daemon anymore. Jack knew from the files that his daemon had been a cat, a lynx of all things, and now there was no sign of him. Jonah didn’t even remember what his daemon’s  _ name _ was. 

Jack could not would not straight up  _ refused  _ to let Gwen see that. 

Ianto, it appeared, had no such qualms. 

As Jack watched Gwen sadly clean up her case board, he heard Navir start to growl, and his fists clenched. As soon as she left he whirled around, feeling himself  _ rage.  _

“Ianto! I want you front and center ten  _ fucking  _ minutes ago!” He snapped, and Ianto wandered up from the archives, looking exhausted. 

“You rang?” He asked tiredly, and it pissed Jack off that he was so calm. Emma, at least, was appropriately terrified. 

Jack got in his face. “What the  _ hell  _ were you thinking?!” 

“Gwen wasn’t going to let it go,” Ianto shrugged lightly, “she’ll be fine.” 

“She-!” Jack ground his teeth “you should’ve obeyed my orders and trusted my judgment!”

“I trust your judgment when you take advice from your employees.” Ianto arched an eyebrow, and Emma looked at him nervously. “Why are you sassing the man with the gun and the giant bear?” 

Ianto shrugged again “he’s not gonna hurt us. What are you angrier about anyway? Gwen losing her supposed innocence or me disobeying you?” 

Jack blinked, thrown by the question. “I- you-“ 

Navir wasn’t growling anymore, and Jack’s shoulders slumped, suddenly there was no anger left.

“I hate that island,” he muttered. “I hate that scream.” 

Ianto drew him into a hug. “I know, Jack, that’s why you told me about it, so it’s a burden shared and therefore a burden lessened.” 

He kissed Jack's cheek, nuzzling him the same way Emma did sometimes. “Gwen and Seraphine are stronger than you think. If you make these things clear to the staff and tell them the rules we won’t have more incidents like today.” 

“I’ll talk to Tosh and Owen tomorrow,” Jack muttered. “Just… don’t let go.” 

He held Ianto tighter, pressed himself closer, and realized that if he could, he would never let Ianto Jones go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: the chapter that will break everyone's soul


	6. Part 4: Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Variations on loss, deadly aliens, and more than one person comes and goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MMmmmmmmmmmmmm okay. So.
> 
> Who's here for the fuckin PAIN yo.
> 
> This chapter is unedited, but to make up for this very painful chapter theres something edited and cute coming at you later this week which involves no death, not even Jack's
> 
> I can't wait for this story to be over, i want you guys to know what i've got planned
> 
> Dedicated to Nik, Jacklynn, and Louise, who had shitty SHITTY days

Things blew up, Grey came back without his daemon. 

Navir dusted as Jack suffocates and doesn’t come back for  _ two thousand years. _

* * *

Getting shot fucking hurt 

Listening to Owen die hurt more. 

Tosh begged him to stop screaming, begged him to keep talking, to hold on until she can move and figure something out. Kya was still locked in the cell downstairs, and she was too far away and Tosh had  _ never  _ been good at thinking without her daemon. 

“It’s alright Tosh,” Owen said.

“I think I’m gonna be okay,” Owen said.

“Tosh, baby?” Owen asked

“...  _ Layla,”  _ Owen breathed.

Tosh closed her eyes, and waited for the light to take her.

* * *

Jack woke up in the cryo room when Grey opened his drawer. His muscles were stiff and he was confused from too long dead, but he knew two things. 

_ I have to save Ianto.  _

And

_ This one killed me. _

He didn’t think of it at the time, but when he and Grey fought as kids Jack always came out on top, by sheer virtue of being older and stronger. 

He got a few hits in, remembered that there was specialty non-freeze chloroform in the cryo unit, and pressed the cloth to his baby brother’s face. 

Grey slumped, and Jack choked on a sob. His brain was waking up now, his memories coming back smoothly. A wet nose pressed to his cheek and he dropped his brother to wrap his arms around Navir’s neck. 

After everything, this was still the same.

There was a golden flash in his peripheral, and Jack frowned at the Jalla bird that perched on the ground. It’s eyes were soft, and something stirred in Jack’s chest. 

“Talmika?”

Grey’s daemon nodded, unable to smile with its beak. “Thank you, for freeing us.” 

And then, Talmika dusted. 

Jack stared at the pile of gold for a minute, then pressed his fingers to Grey’s neck. He sighed, bowing his head. He’d had a feeling that the doctor who’d prepped the cloroform had used poison. Stupid Torchwood, so ready to kill without thought. 

“Rest easy, little brother,” Jack whispered. “Say hi to dad for me.”

* * *

He rescued Gwen and Ianto, only to realize that they’d watched Kya dust in the cells and found Tosh dead on the table. 

They never really found Owen, but with CCTV and a little common sense they figured it out. 

Tosh asked them not to grieve to hard and they utterly failed, but Jack knew that Tosh and Owen were on the other side, together and hopefully happy.

“The end is where we start from,” Jack whispered, and held Ianto tight and thanked god it wasn’t him.

* * *

They were still grieving on the day the earth moved. Navir threw himself on top of Emma and Seraphine the moment things started to shake, and Jack had run outside the minute they stopped.

He wasn’t expecting to see weird planets in the sky. He was expecting it to be nothing, for him and Ianto to be able to keep their reservations for the night. That didn’t happen. Jack spent the rest of the day in a state of panic- Daleks were his one big fear, the one big thing that had killed him. 

He kept Ianto close, curled up against him for most of the period between the Dalek announcement and Harriet Jones’ call. Emma was shaking like a leaf, remembering Canary Wharf and all the trouble it had wrought. 

And then, Harriet Jones called, and maybe, just  _ maybe  _ it wasn’t the end of the world after all.

* * *

He left Navir to protect Ianto and Gwen. 

He’d forgotten how painful separation was, but that was quickly overshadowed by the sheer  _ joy  _ of seeing Rose Tyler again. 

As the doctor explained regeneration to Donna, Nicholas hopped onto Jack’s shoulder and made Jack chuckle. Rose threw her arms around his neck, laughing like a madwoman.

“Oh I missed you,” she said, “I’m so happy your not dead. I missed you- my you, not the one in my universe.”

“You’ve got a me over there?” Jack asked, grinning, and she chuckled. “Yeah. He’s got-  _ god  _ I missed you. Where’s Navi?”

“Home, safe,” Jack shrugged. “What was that about other me?”

Rose shrugged. “He just got married. I was his bridesmaid.”

Jack bit his lip to keep from grinning. “Please tell me his husband is Ianto Jones. Looks good in a suit and-“

“Makes great coffee!” Rose cheered. “You know him?”

Jack laughed, and told her they had so much to talk about.

Married to Ianto. God, if he survived this he just might. 

* * *

He very notably did  _ not  _ survive, but they still won the day. Jack walked back into Torchwood with Martha and Mickey in tow, and he stalked past the dalek at the door, swept Ianto up in his arms and  _ kissed  _ him, still high on adrenaline and victory.

He forgot all about marriage. All about telling Ianto he loved him.

He had time.

* * *

The children stopped less than a year later.

* * *

Blowing up via bomb in his stomach was a new one, Jack had to admit. It hurt. Coming back to life hurt. Getting buried alive in concrete didn’t  _ hurt  _ persay, but it brought up some unpleasant memories that he had barely dealt with. 

He figured it didn’t matter, Ianto saved him. They couldn’t cram Navir in the tiny car, so Navir had to run along side the car with Emma on his back while Ianto and Jack snuggled up in the back seat with Jack still buck naked. 

Dai was also in the back seat, tongue lolling out and tail wagging. He was more animal than daemon, making Rhys more instinctual than intellectual, and Jack had to admit the corgi was  _ very  _ cute. 

They settled in a warehouse, and Jack spent a few hours expelling dust and rocks. Ianto rubbed his back all night, and at the end of it he put his trauma aside to get back to saving the world. 

He’d have time he’d have time  _ he’d have time. _

* * *

Alice’s daemon was a wolf. Roberta was a fierce lady who had regularly stood up to Navir and pissed him off, the perfect expression of Alice.

Steven’s daemon hadn’t settled yet, but his name was Roger, and he spent most of his time as a canary. 

Jack had to save them all. He had to. Those were his kids, this was his family and-

“Let’s go stand up to them.”

… famous last words.

* * *

Jack knew they were fucked when the alarms started going off. 

He ran outside with both daemons on his heels to give orders. Navir bared his teeth for emphasis, and Emma barked, getting as much at attention as she could. He went back inside to find Ianto with his gun raised, prepared to shoot. 

It didn’t do anything. In fact nothing happened until Emma whimpered “I don’t feel good.” 

Until Ianto  _ collapsed. _

Jack knew they were fucked, but not this fucked. This wasn’t happening. He still had time, he still-

Navir stood over Emma, tried to curl himself around her tiny body, tried to protect her from the _air._

Jack cupped Ianto’s face, begged him not to go.

As he died, he prayed to whatever could hear him that this was the last.

* * *

Jack woke up…  _ after  _ feeling like there was a gaping wound in his stomach. 

Navir’s head was on his lap, but Navir was silent. His eyes were big and sad, and when Jack looked to his left he caught a glimpse of Ianto’s hair. 

He closed his eyes, wishing he was dead, wishing it was all a dream and Ianto was waiting on the other side. But he wasn’t. Because Ianto was dead.

_ “Emma,”  _ Navir half sobbed. “Emma,  _ Emma-“ _

Seraphine tried to nudge him, and he snapped his jaws at her, snarling. Jack shushed him, then crawled over to wrap an arm around Gwen, heart sinking like a stone as he looked at Ianto, cold and blue and  _ dead,  _ so dead.

“I didn’t tell him I loved him,” Jack whispered, and Gwen sobbed quietly. He closed his eyes, feeling like a knife was being twisted in his chest. He’d never get to live with Ianto, never get to marry him, they wouldn’t eat dinner together while their kids ran around and Jack wouldn’t get to see him and Emma go grey.

“There’s nothing we can do.” Gwen whispered, and Jack decided she was right. 

* * *

Navir had to tackle Roberta when Steven was placed on the device.

Jack forced himself to watch, and tried to ignore the screaming.

* * *

After, he walked aimlessly around London. He avoided people, avoided main roads, just walked until his feet had blisters. He slept when he was tired, didn’t eat or drink, and died twice. 

He didn’t know when he crossed back into wales, or how he found his way to Cardiff, but once he hit the outskirts he knew exactly where he’d unconsciously been going. 

Gwen hadn’t touched Ianto’s flat. She’d probably lost her copy of the key. Or was busy dealing with the politicians. For a moment Jack felt guilty that he left Gwen on her own to deal with the blowback, but then he unlocked Ianto’s flat with the spare key on the door frame, and the smell of Ianto and coffee smacked him in the face, and he couldn’t feel too guilty. 

Navir walked right in and flopped on the living room carpet with a grunt. He was tired, and the two of them had barely spoke since Ianto had… 

Jack hung his coat up, and took his shoes off by the door, just like always. The flat was destroyed by the ransacking government agents, but they hadn’t destroyed the door or the windows, so he didn’t feel scared to walk around in his socks. 

Ianto’s mug was shattered on the floor or the kitchen, and Jack squeezed his eyes shut, sobbing quietly. What did they think, Ianto was hiding in the coffee stains of his unwashed mug? Why the fuck would they break that?

Jack turned down the short hallway, sparing a glance at the destroyed junk closet and finding the bedroom as destroyed as the rest of the house. Jack swallowed back bile, immidiately crouching to pick up the suits that had been carelessly thrown on he floor. They were all wrinkled. Ianto would-

Jack sobbed again, louder. He pressed the suit to his face, inhaling and smelling just a hint of Ianto below the detergent smell. 

He cleaned the suits up as quickly as possible, hanging them properly but ruining Ianto’s careful color organization system. 

Jack undid his trousers with one hand as he pulled the mattress back onto the bedframe, and kicked them off before scooping up the duvet. He peeled off his dirty button down as he placed the pillows on the bed and closed the drawers on the night stand. 

Jack stood in his undershirt and briefs, nodding once as he examined his handiwork. 

He crawled under the blankets, curling up on his side of the bed and running his fingers over the cold spot where Ianto should have been. He inhaled strongly, thanking the universe that Ianto hadn’t changed the sheets recently. 

“Come to bed soon,” Jack called, then hugged Ianto’s pillow to him and cried himself to sleep.

* * *

Jack had spent six months trying to get over Ianto. Failing that, he’d spent his time trying to find a way to stop  _ hurting.  _

The house of the dead should’ve been his salvation. He should’ve stayed in there and gone into the black like he’d  _ planned _

But no, Ianto had saved him one more time.

“Ianto Jones!  _ I love you!” _

The planet was too small

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: the final chapter :)


	7. Epilogue; Returning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miracles Happen and are Appropriately Vanquished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY MIRACLE DAY EXPLANATION MIGHT NOT MAKE MUCH SENSE BUT CONSIDER- NEITHER DOES CANON!!!
> 
> anyway.
> 
> well, 1 year, 80 pages, and 27 thousand words later, here we are! 
> 
> Today is the first day of my new college courses. I started writing this at my first university, started posting it at my second, and now here we are. I just spent a whole night having nightmares and I can think of no better time to post this then right the fuck now.
> 
> As always, there will be further acknowledgements at the end of this chapter, but my final chapters will always and forever be dedicated to anyone who stuck with me to the very end <3

Jack can’t believe he’s back on earth, not after everything. He can’t believe Gwen has a  _ baby,  _ an actual tiny human. He’s proud of her, and he’s happy for her, but  _ fuck,  _ that little copper he hired has a  _ child _ . 

He also can’t believe he’s in America. He never liked the place, not since Ellis Island and Angelo. He  _ absolutely  _ hates America since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But, here he is. With CIA agents in LA. 

Rex is talking, yelling about some sort of stockpile warehouse that they have to break into. His daemon is a bull mastiff, and both man and mutt are  _ loud.  _

Navir is bored, clearly. He’s laying against a wall, head on his paws, and ignoring any attempt Seraphine makes to talk to him. She’s still allowed to touch him, so far, but when Gwen tried he almost bit her hand off. 

Navir has let no one touch him since Ianto, and Jack isn’t sure he ever will again. 

* * *

Here’s what they know about the supposed “miracle” that is keeping everyone from having their heart stop;

Someone sustains a mortal injury. Their daemon is seemingly unaffected, and can no longer feel their human’s pain. The person’s heart keeps beating even if nothing else among them works, the brain continues to work even when not connected to the heart at all.

No one understands what is happening, least of all Jack, who suddenly isn’t healing. There’s a company called PhiCorp with a secret warehouse and that’s where they are, about to walk into the main section. 

The lock opens on the reinforced doors, and the moment they open it sounds like a fucking  _ zoo,  _ which it may as well be since apparently, what PhiCorp was stockpiling were cages upon cages of animals, all stacked atop one another like some sick shelving unit. Only it’s worse, so much worse. 

“Those are Daemons,” Esther breathes, sounding sick. Gwen races to the computer unit. 

“What the fuck,” Rex says, “where are the  _ people?” _

“Dead,” Gwen says after a moment of running Tosh’s hacking software on the computer. Navir starts sniffing the air. 

“These are daemons of dead people.”

“What’s wrong bud?” Jack asks

“They  _ preserved _ them somehow. There are daemons here from every major terrorist event in the last fifty years.”

“Something smells familiar,” Navir says, looking befuddled. “I don’t know what.”

“Nine-Eleven, Canary Wharf-“ she freezes, and turns to Jack, horrified. “Thames house.” 

Navir roars and bolts down the steps.  _ “Emma!” _

Jack curses, running after him. “Navir, wait!” 

Navir runs along the rows on all fours, sniffing the air. “Emma! Emma where are you?!  _ Emma!” _

Jack hears Seraphine howling behind him, hears alarms going off. He doesn’t care, can’t care when Ianto’s daemon might still be here, alone and scared and  _ suffering  _ and-

Navir’s claws scratch along the floor as he takes a turn too fast and his butt slides while his front moves left. “Emma!  _ Emma!” _

Jack gets to the end of the row Navir turned down, panting. He finds his partner standing in front of a small cage flanked by two larger ones, staring. 

Jack’s heart jumps up into his throat. He knows that look on his partner’s face. 

“Emma?” Navir whispers as Jack reaches his side. 

There’s a terrier spaniel mix curled up in the cage, back to them. Navir takes two steps forward, pressing his nose against the bars. “Emma,  _ please.” _

The dog’s tail thumps once, twice, and Emma picks up her head, turning to look at them. She stares for a long moment, then mutters “Navi? Jack?”

“Oh god,  _ Emma.”  _ Jack half sobs, falling to his knees to pick the lock. Navir growls softly. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you out of here."

“Where’s Ianto?” Emma asks tiredly, “do they have him?”

Navir makes a sad noise as Jack finally gets the cage open and scoops Emma up- gently, like she’s fragile. 

“Boys!” Seraphine comes running down the aisle at them, stopping short when she sees Emma. “Boys we- we have to go.”

Jack nods, and clutches Emma to his chest as he runs

* * *

“So let me get this straight-“ Rex starts, only for Esther to mutter “nothing about this is straight.” 

Jack snorts, less at the joke and more at Rex’s face. 

“Let me get this  _ clear,”  _ Rex starts again, “your boyfriend died in the Thames house massacre-“ 

“With me.”

_ “-with you  _ and that’s his daemon?” Rex points are Emma, who’s curled up next to Navir. Navi has  _ only  _ let Seraphine close to her. When Jubilee and Taylor tried he almost killed them, so Esther and Rex kept their daemons away.

“Yep,” Jack says, and Rex crosses his arms. “But the boyfriend is still dead?”

“Yep,” Gwen replies before Jack can. When he flinches she sighs and says “sorry Jack, but we buried him. Ianto Jones is dead.” 

Jack wishes he was drunk. 

Navir lets out a low sound as Emma blinks her eyes open, picking up her head. Seraphine gently noses her. “Em? How do you feel, sweetheart?”

“... cold,” Emma mumbles, “and tired. Where’s  Ianto?” 

Jack  _ really  _ wishes he was drunk.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Navir asks, and Emma blinks slowly, then yawns. “Thames house. I saw gold, and I thought… and then I woke up in that cage.” 

“Did they hurt you?” Jack asks through clenched teeth, and she shakes her head. “They… took samples. I thought they had Ianto somewhere. I miss him.” 

She yawns again, resting her head on her paws. Navir nuzzled her gently, and she let out a soft whimper. 

“We need more information,” Esther sighs, turning back to her computer. Jubilee scurries up onto her shoulder. The sugar glider was never far from Esther, unlike Rex and Taylor, who could separate for miles before the pain stopped them. 

Jack sits by Navir’s head, slowly reaching out to scratch Emma behind the ears. Her tail thumps on the ground once, twice, and Jack misses Ianto so much it aches. 

* * *

Rhys calls the next day in a panic, telling Gwen that someone had tried to kill him and Anwen, and only Andy’s quick thinking had saved him. 

Jack has never been so thankful for Andy Davidson’s existence. He’s reasonably sure Gwen feels the same way. Then someone tries to kill  _ them  _ and as Jack incapacitates the assassin he mentions something about  _ families. _

Esther does some hacking in twice the time it would’ve taken Tosh, and Jack realizes what’s going on.

“In the future Planets are classified as living beings,” Jack explains, and at Gwen and Rex’s looks Ester quietly says “it makes sense. They grow and change. They produce waste and life.” 

“You know how some people theorize bugs and animals are just the daemons of plants or vice versa?” Jack asks, and Gwen frowns, nodding. Jack shrugs “they aren’t  _ exactly  _ wrong. Not as wrong as some people think. Planets don’t have daemons, but they have an excess amount of energy. I think these guys have tapped into it-“

“Making daemons unable to die.” Gwen finishes grimly. “And if the daemons are keeping people alive-“ 

“People can’t die either.” Jack nods. “We need to figure out how who the families are and how they’re involved in all this and-“

Rex snorts. “Families. Sounds like a mafia movie.”

Jack freezes.

An Italian, obsessed with daemons and long life, cold hands with bony fingers and crooked teeth and a laugh that made Jack's heart-

“Oh god,” Jack says, horrified “oh god I think the miracle might be my fault.”

* * *

Jack told Ianto about Angelo Colessanto that night when they got drunk after the fairies. Angelo had lost his daemon in a childhood accident and had become obsessed with Navir. He was one of the big reasons that he didn’t advertise his immortality. 

Now, Jack finds Angelo’s daughter, tracks her down like a dog, and finds  _ Angelo,  _ the abusive piece of shit himself, old and frail, and  _ dying _ with no daemon to keep him alive. He's, apparently, spent the last 70 or so years stalking Jack's every move. Creep.

“Did you see him?” Jack asks intently. “Did you see Ianto?” 

_ Did you see how someone can love me? Did you see how I got the love I deserve? Did you see how I lost it? _

Jack sheds a few tears as Angelo dies, letting himself grieve for the good times. Then he smiles, and laughs a little.

Emma, sitting in the corner with Navir, gives him a strange look, and Jack grins at her. “Ianto’s gonna kick his ass.” 

Emma laughs for the first time since they rescued her, and both Jack and Navir feel a little lighter.

* * *

The well they’re using to tap into the earth’s daemon energy is in Singapore, the home of the second-largest rift on the planet after Cardiff. 

Their weapons don’t work. A daemon needs to be dusted. Jack and Navir are, as always, the obvious choice. 

Esther and Rex are outside, holding back attackers. Emma was arguing with Navir and Seraphine, saying that she was  _ staying goddamnit, I’m not supposed to be alive anyway.  _

“Jack,” Gwen says softly. “What if this doesn’t work? What if this just  _ kills you?  _ I can’t- I can’t lose anyone else.” 

“If I die, you go home.” Jack says, hugging her tight and kissing her forehead “You raise Anwen. You tell her stories about her aunt and uncles and how much they loved her. You forget about aliens and live your life.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she sniffs

“Please. You’re Gwen Cooper, you can do anything.” Then he steps back and gives her a brave smile “now get out of here. You too Seraphine.”

“Bye Sera,” Emma says, licking her snout. “I’ll tell the others you said hi.”

Seraphine darts over to Gwen, and as they leave Jack turns back to the well, ready. 

Navir nuzzles Emma, muttering a quiet “I love you” 

Jack raises his gun. He sighs.

“I’ll tell Ianto you say hi.” Emma whispers, and Jack eats his own bullet. 

As Navir dusts, the well roars, and the light brightens and fades, as if the world is sighing in relief. 

Emma feels the unsettling feeling of death, and she looks up at the floating cloud of dust that Navir became when Jack died. She sighs, relieved that they seemed to be back to normal. She curls up on the floor beneath him, closing her eyes. 

“I don’t want to go,” she whispers and then fades to dust.

* * *

(In another world, Emma’s final wish goes unheard. Jack and Navir wake up and cry. They stay on earth with Gwen, never quite getting over Ianto and leaving the next time the world needs saving. They die and live and mourn for centuries. When the pain finally fades they are able to remember Ianto and Emma fondly. No one ever replaces them. 

But this too is not to be) 

There is no one alive to hear the soft footsteps walking across the room where the well once was. A small golden lemur hops on Jack’s chest, and a voice chuckles lightly. “Leave him alone Nicholas.” 

Warm hands run through Jack’s hair, through the glowing golden cloud of dust that makes up both Emma and Navir. Glowing eyes watch as the vortex energy is shared between the two daemons. She chuckles again.

“Jack,” she whispers, “my soldier. My most loyal follower. Today is the day I foresaw and will foresee. Today is the day you get your reward. He loves you, my Jack, he loves you so very much. 

(At that moment, a welsh security guard panics as a patch of ground in the cemetery he’s guarding starts to glow)

She lays the new body next to her soldier’s, smiling. “Take care of one another.”

Lady time- although she can also be called the Bad Wolf- smiles.  _ “I bring life.”  _

* * *

Jack wakes with a gasp, and then a sigh. Immortality fully functional, great. 

He looks to his left, and he almost dies again from shock.

Ianto is laying there. Ianto is  _ coughing.  _ Ianto Jones is alive alive  _ alive  _ and he’s looking up at Jack in a panic. “Jack? What’s going on, where’s the four five six-“

Jack stared, then reached out and touched his chest, feeling the thrumming heartbeat under his fingers. 

“Jack!  _ Focus!” _

“You were dead,” Jack said, eyes filling with tears “you were dead, and now you’re alive and I don’t know how but oh my fucking god,  _ Ianto-“ _

Before he could hug him, Navir reformed with a grunt. And there, lying by his feet- 

_ “Ianto!”  _ Emma shrieked, jumping into his arms and licking his face. Jack laughed, not caring if this was a dream or a hallucination or whatever the fuck. Somehow, someway, Ianto was alive, and Jack had never been this happy in his entire life. 

* * *

Throughout the galaxy and throughout time, people found a bear and a dog running around, the dog usually on the bear’s back. Two men could usually be found following them, one in a long coat and the other in a suit. 

They hold hands. They smile, they laugh. 

How can you hide your affection for your husband when the manifestations of your souls spend all their time together? Ianto and Jack don’t know, but they figure there’s no point in trying. 

They shout their love to the stars. They live, they die, they live again. 

Together. Always. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fin.
> 
> Thank you to Louise and Gianna for being the first people to let me yell at them about this story. Thank you to the Westminster dog show for putting a welsh terrier on my tv and reminding me this story exists. Thank you to Nik, who loves this story so much that there might be a short lil sequel in the works about everyone's favorite good boy, Dai the Corgi. Thank you to the entire torchwood discord server for being the most loving, wonderful group of people I know. I love you all.
> 
> That's all from me! come visit me on Tumblr www.flamingbluepanda.tumblr.com and have a great day!
> 
> See ya!

**Author's Note:**

> Come check me up on tumblr, www.flamingbluepanda.tumblr.com
> 
> I'm gonna update the next chapter of this fic in about a week. Hopefully *knocks on wood* I can keep updating every week until it's done. 
> 
> whoever's reading this, I love you. See ya soon!


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